The term “fifth Beatle” has been used for so many different people over the years, with many fans having it as a close tie between George Martin and Brian Epstein. Others like Stuart Sutcliffe, Pete Best or Neil Aspinall also get mentioned.
The first one to be given the title by the press was Jimmie Nicol after he stepped in for Ringo in June 1964 for their world tour, when Ringo Starr was rushed to hospital on the verge of the tour starting.
However, as featured on the cover of The Beatles: What If? is one man who could have become the fifth Beatle back in 1962, but who was he?
he is the guy at the top of the picture of The Beatles, expertly drawn by artist David Rainey on the cover below.
Got it yet?
His name was Roy Young, and he was the booking manager at the Star Club in Hamburg, the club that The Beatles opened in April 1962. He was also Britain’s answer to Little Richard, with an incredible singing voice and a boogie-woogie piano style to rival The Beatles’ hero, Little Richard.
On stage, Roy had his piano, and he was often pictured on stage playing with The Beatles.
Can you imagine what adding a piano permanently to The Beatles would have changed?
This is one of those key “What If” moments in Beatles history examined in The Beatles: What If? by David Bedford and Andrew Phillips.
David interviewed Roy Young and got his incredible story, which you can read in the book. See how close he came to being the first Fifth Beatle!
You can order it for US/ Canada or UK/Europe below.
COLLECTING THE BEATLES: THE PROS AND CONS OF PRICE GUIDES
The pros of Beatles price guides are many as they help to define the marketplace and what your Beatles collectables may be worth. In that regard when you come to the time when there is a need or desire to sell an item, you at least have a ballpark figure of what to seek for the item when you put it for sale.
The problem with that perspective is that Beatles collectables have appreciated greatly over the years and what one could have received for an item 10 years ago has changed greatly in a relatively short period of time. Time specificity becomes an important factor when determining what you are going to ask for an item 20 years after you obtained a price guide for reference. Price guides also do not account for potential dastardly economic downturns which even when they are not frequent, they can happen and could drastically affect when you may get financially in return for your prized treasure.
Also, as the demand decreases as the baby boom generation begins to dwindle, will that impact prices as demand for the product may decrease. That argument is often countered with the statement that new generations continue to have a strong interest in Beatles product. That in turn can be countered by stating that the younger generations have less of a desire for physical product than their older counterparts, potentially limiting demand and what they may be willing to pay for a particular product. There are also the economic concerns of inflation!
Price guides can also suffer from the same problem encountered with Beatles Discographies. Once a new product is issued, the book referencing the collectables becomes out-of-date and immediately in need of updating in order to accommodate the newly issued item. Electronically updating the new information is significantly cheaper and timelier to accomplish which may signal the ultimate death knell for print publishing.
If you are a completist type of collector, you require that you have access to the most up-to-date information available to you!
Another factor in the price you can realize for a collectable is the awareness of the existence of the item. If the product is in high demand by a significant amount of people, that helps to push the asking price up. If the demand is low, negotiation may be a better strategy to pursue! Limited edition books for example can demand higher prices for several reasons. Often, they are more expensive to produce with better quality printing materials, but the low amount produced when the demand is high automatically generates a higher pricing structure.
The focus of today’s post will be on some of the price guides that have been issued about the Beatles. This does not claim to be exhaustive investigation in that category only to create a general awareness of some of the price guides that are out there!
Price Guides can serve an excellent function, but it is a guide not a final determinant. A seller can ask what they want for any item but that does not guarantee a successful transaction unless there is a person out there willing to pay the asking price. How many high-priced items have you seen over the years that you considered to be excessively over-priced that go unsold for a considerably long time?
Yet you also see items considered to be over-priced sell-out very quickly. The demand is excessively high and a sufficient amount of people with the available funds to purchase the item vie to possess or own it and the item goes quickly. The seller either through good marketing appeals to the correct demographic audience with sufficient funds and interest and the item quickly sells-out. It will be interesting to see what prices the marketplace will endure when the two remaining Beatles are no longer around or when the release of new product grinds to a standstill. Fifty years from now, will the Beatles still be generating Herculean prices for collectables? That remains to be seen but I suspect that they will!
A favorite price guide: A Price Guide For The Beatles American Records (6th edition) Collector’s edition by Perry Cox & Frank Daniels (Foreword by Bruce Spizer)
Published in 2007 by 498 Productions, LLC, the same company that publishes the books of Beatles scholar, Bruce Spizer! This limited-edition collector’s edition of the book was issued in a slipcase and limited to 200 signed and numbered copies. This book is presented in full color and is a fabulous reference work. If you are fortunate to be able to find one for sale, I recommend that you acquire it if you can!
This is a photo of my copy and the outer slipcase:
A photo of the cover of the book:
The back cover of the book:
The signature page signed by the two authors, Perry Cox and Frank Daniels along with the writer of the Foreword, Bruce Spizer:
Publisher details:
Table of Contents:
Bruce Spizer’s Foreword:
The team that created the guide:
An earlier price guide from 1993, Michael Todd’s Beatles For Sale: The International Price Guide to LPs EPs 45s CDs
Published January 1993 by AMV and compiled/written by Michael Todd this a very comprehensive guide up to the date of the publication of this book. This is a photo of my copy of the book. I particularly enjoy referencing this work for earlier releases, it is a great resource! Since it is an early price guide, would love to one day see the author have a follow-up which included photos of the respective releases. Obviously, that is far more expensive to produce but having the accompanying photos would help a prospective buyer and seller of the recorded work.
The Foreword to Michael Todd’s Beatles Price Guide:This task was a difficult one for the author as Michael took on the task of documenting the much larger pool of international releases in his work!
The balance of the author’s Foreword
The Table of Contents:
Author’s acknowledgment page:
Official Price Guide to the Beatles Paperback – August 15, 1995 by Perry Cox (Author) – Publisher – House of Collectibles – The First Edition
The Second edition – The Official Price Guide to The Beatles Records and Memorabilia: 2nd Edition Paperback – August 17, 1999 by Perry Cox (Author)-House of Collectibles
Warman’s Beatles Field Guide: Values and Identification Paperback – January 1, 2005 by Tim Neely (Editor) Krause Pubns Inc
The Beatles Memorabilia Price Guide Paperback – January 1, 1997
by Jeff Augsburger (Author), Marty Eck (Author), Rick Rann (Author) Published by Antique Trader Books
Beatles Price and Reference Guide for American Records Paperback – January 1, 1986 by Perry Cox (Author), Michael Miller (Author) Published by Cox Miller Ltd
Introducing … The Beatles Record Price Guide Perfect Paperback – January 1, 2011 by Stanley Panenka (Author), Jerry Osborne (Editor), John Tefteller (Foreword)
Osborne Enterprises Publishing
The Beatles: A Reference & Value Guide Paperback – January 1, 1998 by Barbara Crawford (Author), Michael Stern (Author), Hollis Lamon (Author) Published by Collector Books
The Complete Beatles U.S. Record Price Guide Paperback – January 1, 1983 by Perry Cox (Author), Joe Lindsay (Author)-Publisher-Longman Trade/Caroline House
Collecting the Beatles: An Introduction and Price Guide to Fabulous Four Collectibles Volume 1 (Rock & Roll Reference Series) Hardcover – January 1, 1983 by Barbara Fenwick (Author) Pierian Press
Barbara was the primary writer and editor of the fanzine, “The Write Thing.”
Collecting the Beatles: An Introduction and Price Guide, Vol. 2 Hardcover – June 1, 1985 by Barbara Fenick (Author) Pierian Press
The Beatles: A Collectors Guide to Beatles Memorabilia: Yesterday & Tomorrow by Courtney McWilliams | Jan 1, 1997-Published by Schiffer Pub Ltd
Though not a price guide per se, Tom Fontaine’s book represents a fine collection of rare items acquired by the noted collector for his fabulous Beatles collection
Published in 2025 it helps to give you the history of some of the very rare collectables, how they were acquired and how that can impact value.
Another guide to assist you in determining value is to peruse multiple auction catalogs before and after an auction. You can see if the suggested appraised value was met or was greatly exceeded!
Hope you enjoyed this blog piece about the many Beatles price guides that are out there in the marketplace! How many of you viewers use a price guide in order to determine what they are willing to pay for an item. Do you depend on instinct, impulse or something else when you make your purchases?
Have you ever bought an item that you knew in your heart and soul that you should not have because of the great expense? If so, are you happy that you did so or are you now disappointed?
What is your favourite item of Beatles memorabilia?Let me know in the comments.
Be healthy and be happy!
Buzz
DISCOVER MORE GREAT BOOKS ABOUT THE BEATLES AT THE BEATLES BOOKSTORE
Biography
Biographical books about The Beatles or those associated with them
We all know that John Lennon met his first wife Cynthia Powell in art college in Liverpool. When Cynthia became pregnant with son Julian, John and Cynthia tied the knot and they would stay together until their divorce in 1968.
When John was murdered in 1980, Cynthia a year later made a decision to return to her sketches that chronicled those hectic years that she spent with John through the years of Beatlemania, the end of touring and the beginning of the studio years. In 1981 the Tower Gallery sponsored a collection of her prints from that era that she had drawn. In several public appearances, she signed some of those prints for fans. The one you see here was signed for me in New York City in September of 1981 at a New York Fest for Beatles Fans. Cynthia was very pleasant and cordial in signing her print of the Beatles and their wives/girlfriend in India with the Maharishi in 1968 just around the time that Brian Epstein passed away. In 1981, Cynthia was married to John Twist.
Cynthia’s inscription to me on the print that I purchased from her:
Cynthia’s signature on the print:
In the year 2000, Cynthia Lennon created this special box set portfolio of 4 signed prints she did of John as a gift to her son, Julian. I was able to obtain a signed set from eBay several years ago. The photos below are the set that I acquired.
The boxed portfolio containing the four prints that Cynthia di of her former husband!
In 2000, Cynthia Lennon, the 1st wife of John and mother of Julian, painted four portraits of John and gave them to Julian as a birthday gift on the 20th anniversary of John’s death in 1980. A production company in London contracted to produce a “limited edition” of these portraits in colour lithograph prints. The promotion never went through but there were 300 sets of these prints produced. This example is in near-mint condition.
The four-piece artwork set was printed by Napier Jones to Fine Art Trade Guild Standards
PRINT #1- A 1963 DEPICTION:
Print #1 (top) is a depiction of how John Lennon looked in the year 1963 in his collarless jacket.
PRINT #2-BEATLEMANIA
Print #2 is a depiction of how John Lennon looked in the year 1965, the year the Beatles received their Member of the British Empire medals from the Queen of England. John was to return his medal in 1969 as gesture of protest against the British government!
John Lennon in 1965 by Cynthia Lennon
PRINT #3-THE PSYCHEDELIC JOHN: 1967
Print #3 is a depiction of how John Lennon looked in the year 1967, during the period of time that Sgt Pepper was released and John and the other Beatles had finally stopped touring
PRINT #4-1980 THE YEAR JOHN WAS TAKEN AWAY:
Print #4 is a depiction of how John Lennon looked in the year 1980, when John`s life was so quickly and cruelly taken.
AN AUDIO BOOK ABOUT JOHN LENNON READ BY CYNTHIA LENNON: WITH AN AUDIO INTRODUCTION BY JULIAN LENNON
The book version of John was published in 2005 and was far more forthright and direct about her emotions concerning the split with John.
This is the audio version of that book:
I love this 4-cd set which featured Cynthia Lennon reading her book about her life with John Lennon. The set also featured an audio introduction by their son, Julian Lennon. In the introduction, you can easily see the devotion and love Julian had for his mum!
A special Lennon biography written by journalist Ray Coleman and signed by the author along with Cynthia and Julian Lennon!
Hope you enjoyed this discussion of Cynthia Lennon, a lady who raised a wonderful son and musician. That in itself is a great legacy to leave the world! She will not be forgotten!
I have often thought with the current political climate in the world, what would John Lennon have thought of what was going on NOW? For example, John was no stranger back in the 70s in dealing with his own immigration problems. He had received a cannabis possession conviction in the UK in 1968, arrested by a police officer named Norman Pilcher who was himself later convicted of planting the narcotics on many of the celebrities he had arrested.
When John & Yoko in order to avoid the nastiness of the UK press decided to move permanently to America, that was to mark the beginning of a serious immigration problem for John. When the Nixon administration perceived Lennon as a political threat to the administration’ support for the Vietnam War, they decided to use John’s narcotics conviction as a pretext to remove a potential political enemy who could be possibly influential with the youth who were now of the age to vote for the first time.
The government had John on the Presidential enemies list because of his anti-war political views with songs such as Give Peace a Chance, and it was convenient for them to start deportation proceedings against him to remove him as a potential political threat. Notice any modern-day parallels? John was being subject to wiretaps, being followed by the FBI and numerous other surveillance activities. I was able back in the 80s to secure through the Freedom of Information Act, many of the FBI files compiled about John. Many were significantly redacted. Sound familiar? They even had some pictures of John in the files that the FBI were claiming to be John when in actuality were in fact actually street musician, David Peel! Let’s hear it for information accuracy!
It must be stressed at this juncture that this post is not a discussion of legal vs. illegal immigration. Most people as a common belief, would probably be adamantly against illegal immigration. If the legal process for admission is followed, however, the United States of America became great because it welcomed immigration and those words are written on that statue on the Hudson in New York City who welcomed millions of people to this country.
After all, other than Native Americans, everyone else in America is an immigrant. Think about that one for a while!
THE CLASSIC BOB GRUEN PHOTO OF JOHN LENNON FROM 1974 SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY BOB AT THE FEST FOR BEATLES FANS IN 1986
Bob Gruen photo of John Lennon
A song that perfectly sums up how he felt about politicians in general:
University of California Press-January 21, 2000, Jon Wiener, author
When Professor Wiener notified the readers of his book that they could obtain copies of the Lennon FBI files through the FOI (Freedom of Information) Act, I did so, and was startled to receive this binder of information in the mail one day.
Soon thereafter so many people were requesting the files from the FBI, that they began charging per page to send the files out to interested parties!
John Lennon FBI Files
A couple of samples from my mammoth set of documents:
Sample from the John Lennon FBI Files
Sample from the John Lennon FBI Files
John’s immigration problems were historical in nature as they set legal precedents that are used and referenced even today in law classes and in legal cases. John’s legal representative, the late Leon Wildes was largely responsible for this, and he detailed the case in this book from 2016.
John Lennon vs. The U.S.A.: The Inside Story of the Most Bitterly Contested and Influential Deportation Case in UnitedStates History Hardcover – August 16, 2016 by Leon Leon Wildes (Author)
We will leave the closing words to today’s post to the late George Harrison. Listen closely to George’s lyrics for this song. He speaks of such issues as non-conformity and some of his objection to authority figures and he has a direct quote about deportation in the song. I have no doubts that this was in part a subtle reference to his friend’s immigration dilemma in the United States which was to end in the year that the song was released as John received his Green Card!
One of my favorite sources of information about European record releases, Edward Eikelenboomhas just informed me about an alternate cover of Paul’s forthcoming new album coming at the end of May 2026. This is the cover being sold by Amoeba Records on yellow vinyl. Only one per customer!!!Also, it is apparentlyrestricted to US customers only, but I could be wrong about that. If you live in Europe, please let me know if that is indeed the case! Thank you!
Paul McCartney’s release of “Days We Left Behind” took the world by surprise, but as he is such a prolific musical artist that often some of his better songs can get lost in the shuffle. Here are two rare Paul McCartney Promo CDs. One such number was the song I Want to Come Home that he wrote for the Robert DeNiro film entitled,Everybody’s Fine!
To the best of my knowledge, it has not been officially issued on a McCartney album nor was it released on the official film soundtrack. Its original and demo versions were released on the McCartney 7″ Singles Box on December 2, 2022.
It is a beautiful melody and has an emotionally effective lyric by Paul and deserves to be heard by far more people as it is one of his many GEMS!
The rare promo cd of the song issued with a photo sleeve issued by Hollywood Records:
CD 1- (I Want To) Come Home:With the picture sleeve
The back cover of the special promo cd:
I purchased my copy long ago at the Discogs website.
Discogs – Music Database and Marketplace Promo CDs because of the limited numbers that are pressed, do not stay around for long and in that event, you need to find a fellow collector that is willing to sell or trade their copy to you or seek one out on such sources as eBay!
PAUL MCCARTNEY [I Want To] Come Home (Official 2009 US Hollywood Records/Miramax label 3-track promotional only CD-R acetate which repeats the same song three times.
Written, produced and performed by Paul for use in the ‘track listing Fine’ movie and was available on the 8th of December 2009 as a download only single during the week before the film’s theatrical release and is not included on the soundtrack. Custom printed disc complete with a custom picture sleeve and track listing back insert along with the movie advert).
Arranged By [Orchestral Arrangement] – Dario Marianelli, Paul McCartney Conductor [Orchestra] – Dario Marianelli Mastered By – Tim Young Mixed By – Geoff Emerick Mixed By [Assistant Engineer] – Adam Noble Recorded By – Eddie Klein, Jamie Kirkham, Keith Smith (2) Recorded By [Orchestra – Assisted By] – Chris Barrett, Olga Fitzroy Recorded By [Orchestra] – Nick Wollage Written By, Producer, Performer – Paul McCartney Taken from the film ‘Everybody’s Fine’ Release date – December 4, 2009
Recorded at Hog Hill Mill Orchestra recorded at Air Studios, London Mixed at Hog Hill Mill Mastered at Metropolis
The track that Paul sings, A Room with a View is perfectly suited to his incredible versatility as a vocalist and interpreter of various musical styles!
A photo of the promo cd:
An image of the back cover of the promo cd issued by EMI:
TRACK LISTING:
Various – 20th Century Blues
Label: EMI United Kingdom – CDPP 053 CD, Album, Promo UK Released: 1998
1 Elton John– Introduction (To Twentieth Century Blues) 1:06 2 Texas– Parisian Pierrot 3:39 3 The Divine Comedy– I’ve Been To A Marvellous Party 3:41 4 Paul McCartney– A Room With A View 2:05 5 Pet Shop Boys– Sail Away 4:31 6 Shola Ama & Craig Armstrong– Someday I’ll Find You 3:39 7 Robbie Williams– There Are Bad Times Just Around The Corner 4:36 8 Bryan Ferry– I’ll See You Again 2:40 9 Marianne Faithfull– Mad About The Boy 5:18 10 Space (4)– Mad Dogs And Englishmen 3:10 11 Suede Featuring Raissa*– Poor Little Rich Girl 7:12 12 Sting– I’ll Follow My Secret Heart 2:33 13 Damon Albarn And Michael Nyman– London Pride 4:41 14 Vic Reeves– Mrs Worthington 4:57 15 Elton John– Twentieth Century Blues 5:31
THE US CD WITH A ROOM WITH A VIEW:
This is the US cd of the release:
Record Label: KALA 1999 Twentieth-Century Blues: The Songs Of Noël Coward
Rear cover of the cd:
AND THE LATEST McCARTNEY GEM:DAYS WE LEFT BEHIND
As I was writing the piece about Paul’s fabulous 2009, (I Want To) Come Home song, I nearly dropped my upper teeth when I heard Paul’s new song Days, We Left Behind being premiered on the BBC. What a fabulous track!!! When Paul combines emotional depth through his lyrics along with his beautiful melodies, he is unstoppable!
This song joins the ranks of many of his classic songs! Not bad for someone who is in his 80s!
Paul had already mentioned “The Boys Dungeon Lane” in an acoustic performance filmed in LIPA, issued as an extra on the DVD “Liverpool Oratorio” back in 2005, though the song has never been released. “Days We Left Behind” will be on the new album being released at the end of May 2026.
And already a beautiful cover version has been posted to YouTube (There are many already on YouTube)
