Something extraordinary is coming to the auction block in New York this month: The Jim Irsay Collection—widely regarded as the most significant private assemblage of rock and roll memorabilia ever gathered, and the Beatles portion alone is expected to generate tens of millions of dollars. It is, by any measure, a once-in-a-lifetime sale. Irsay, the Indianapolis Colts owner who died in 2024, spent decades acquiring instruments and artifacts with the obsessive devotion of someone who understood that these objects were not merely collectibles, but physical evidence of cultural history. The Beatles items in the collection document the full arc of the band’s story. The guitars in the broader Irsay Collection have been described as the greatest such grouping on earth—instruments that once belonged to Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend, Prince, Lou Reed, Eddie Van Halen, Johnny Cash, Les Paul, U2’s The Edge, Walter Becker of Steely Dan, Neal Schon of Journey, and John McVie of Fleetwood Mac, among others. But it is the Beatles material that sits at the collection’s heart. No comparable grouping of artifacts from a single band has ever appeared at auction. What follows is a look at the crown jewels. The Beatles: The Logo Drum Head Used for Their Debut Appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, 1964 Estimate: $1,000,000 – $2,000,000 A 1964 Remo Weather King bass drum head—painted black with the Beatles’ iconic “drop-T” logo and the Ludwig brand mark—this is the actual drum head Ringo Starr played on his second Ludwig Black Oyster Pearl kit during one of the most consequential weeks in rock and roll history. The head was used for the Beatles’ American debut on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, an appearance watched by an estimated 73 million viewers that effectively launched Beatlemania in the United States. It then traveled with the band to Washington, D.C., for their first American concert at the Washington Coliseum on February 11, and on to two landmark performances at Carnegie Hall on February 12. Ringo played this same drum head for two additional Ed Sullivan appearances on February 16 and 23, completing what remains one of the most celebrated concert runs in pop history. George Harrison: A Gibson ‘SG’ Standard Guitar Used Extensively from 1966 to 1968 Estimate: $800,000–$1,200,000. A 1964 Gibson SG Standard—serial number 227666—with the Gibson name inlaid at the headstock and the mahogany body and neck finished in cherry red. This is one of the most historically significant guitars in the Beatles story. Harrison acquired a pair of Gibson SG Standards in 1966, and this instrument was played extensively during one of the most creatively explosive periods in the band’s career. It appears in some of the most iconic photographs from the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band era and was used during the recording sessions that produced Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s, and The Beatles (the White Album). The Beatles/Paul McCartney: Handwritten Lyrics for 'Hey Jude', 1968 Estimate: $600,000–$1,000,000 Few artifacts in rock and roll history carry the weight of this single sheet of paper. Written in Paul McCartney’s distinctive hand, these are the working lyrics for “Hey Jude”—one of the best-selling singles ever released, a song that spent nine weeks at number one in the United States and remains one of the most recognizable pieces of popular music ever recorded. McCartney wrote “Hey Jude” in the summer of 1968 as a gesture of comfort to John Lennon’s son Julian, then five years old and struggling to make sense of his parents’ separation. The song was recorded at the end of July and into early August 1968, split between sessions at Abbey Road and Trident Studios in Soho—and this lyric sheet was present for those sessions, a working document from one of the defining recording moments of the decade. John Lennon: A Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins Used During the Recording Sessions for 'Paperback Writer” Estimate: $600,000–$800,000 The Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins was one of the defining guitars of early rock and roll — a hollow-body instrument with a warm, resonant tone that Gretsch had originally designed with country music in mind, but which found its most iconic home in the hands of players like Eddie Cochran and a young John Lennon, who had coveted the model since his earliest days in Liverpool. This particular example, built in 1963 in Gretsch’s Brooklyn factory, was the instrument Lennon brought to the “Paperback Writer” and “Rain” sessions in April 1966—a recording date that found the Beatles operating at the absolute peak of their studio ambitions. Approximately a year after those sessions, Lennon gave the guitar to his cousin David Birch—a characteristically generous gesture from a band that, as the auction notes observe, had a well-documented habit of passing instruments along to friends and family. The guitar’s provenance is confirmed by a precise match in the wood grain—the kind of physical detail that makes the difference between strong circumstantial evidence and certainty. The Beatles: Ringo Starr's First Ludwig Drum Kit Used from May 1963 to February 1964 Estimate: $1,000,000–$2,000,000 When Ringo Starr joined the Beatles in August 1962, replacing Pete Best, he brought with him the Premier kit he’d been playing with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. It was a fine working drummer’s kit, but it wasn’t what the Beatles needed for where they were going. In early 1963, Ringo acquired this Ludwig outfit from Drum City, a legendary London shop on Shaftesbury Avenue that was, as the auction notes recall, an almost intoxicating destination for any young drummer who walked through its doors. The kit’s distinctive Black Oyster Pearl finish would become one of the most recognizable visual signatures in rock history. What happened next is one of the great compressed success stories in popular music. From May 1963 through February 1964—a span of less than a year—Ringo played this kit as the Beatles went from promising British act to the most famous band on earth. It is the kit heard on the early recordings that defined the sound of the era: the thunderous fills on “She Loves You,” the propulsive drive of “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” the recordings that sent Beatlemania sweeping first across Britain and then across the Atlantic. The kit was retired from active use in February 1964—replaced by the second Ludwig outfit Ringo used for the Ed Sullivan appearances—which means its working life ended at precisely the moment the story became global. John Lennon: The Broadwood Upright Piano on Which He Composed 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds', 'A Day in the Life', and 'Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!' Estimate: $400,000–$600,000 John Broadwood & Sons had been building pianos in London since 1728—instruments that passed through the hands of Haydn, Beethoven, and Chopin before the firm’s Victorian-era uprights began finding their way into the parlors and drawing rooms of middle-class Britain. This particular example, completed in 1873, eventually made its way to John Lennon sometime after August 1964, when he moved into Kenwood, his newly purchased mock-Tudor mansion in the Surrey stockbroker belt—his first real home, a vast space that needed filling. The likely story of how it arrived there is quietly charming. Cynthia Lennon’s mother, Lillian Powell, had developed a passion for attending auctions around Britain, and Lennon gave her open-ended permission to buy whatever she felt suited the house. A beautiful Victorian upright with the gravitas of a 19th-century London maker would have been exactly the kind of object that caught her eye—and, as the auction notes observe, the kind of thing whose aesthetic would have appealed deeply to Lennon himself. What Lennon then did at this piano places it among the most significant instruments in the history of popular music. During the Sgt. Pepper’s sessions of late 1966 and early 1967, he composed three of the album’s most enduring and ambitious pieces on this keyboard—songs that between them encompass psychedelic wonder, orchestral grandeur, and Victorian circus nostalgia, and which helped make Sgt. Pepper’s the most critically celebrated rock album ever made. Ringo Starr: A Pinky Ring Worn During His Career with The Beatles Estimate: $60,000–$100,000 Ringo Starr was always the Beatle who wore his personality most visibly—the rings stacked on his fingers became as much a part of his visual identity as his Ludwig kit. This particular gold pinky ring is one of the most extensively documented pieces of personal jewelry in Beatles history, appearing at two of the most significant moments in the band’s recorded visual legacy. It is visible on Ringo’s hand on the front cover of Please Please Me, the debut album released in March 1963 that launched everything—a cover photograph taken in the stairwell of the EMI Manchester Square offices in a session that lasted all of eleven minutes. It reappears on the back cover of Help! in 1965, by which point the Beatles had become the most photographed people on earth. And it made the journey to America in February 1964, present on Ringo’s hand during the Ed Sullivan appearances that introduced the band to 73 million American viewers—quite possibly the most-watched musical performance of the 20th century. The Beatles: A Signed Poster, 1967 Estimate: $60,000–$80,000 A rare color UK Beatles Fan Club poster for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, signed in blue ink by all four Beatles. The significance of the album being celebrated here is difficult to overstate. Released on 1 June 1967, Sgt. Pepper’s spent 27 weeks at the top of the UK charts and 15 weeks at number one in the United States, won four Grammy Awards including Album of the Year—the first rock album ever to do so—and is routinely cited in critical polls as the g
