A handwritten letter from John Lennon to TV host Joe Franklin from 1971 raked in $28,000 at an auction recently.
RR Auction in Boston put the letter, along with tons of other rock memorabilia, up for sale Thursday, Oct. 23. The letter was written on Apple Recordsstationary and mostly involved praise for Yoko Ono's album Fly.
"Of course Yoko can explain her music better in person, this is a kind of introduction. For something rather more 'straight,' a track called 'Mrs. Lennon' on Fly is an example of her more conservative side," Lennon wrote. "She was trained as a classical musician, and took music composition in Sarah Lawrence College as her major. It's far out, but don't let it frighten you."
Other Beatles goods at the auction included four stock transfer sheets individually signed by Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr went for more than $16,000 each.
Recently, Harrison's childhood home sold for more than $250,000. A rare, autographed copy of the Fab Four's Please Please Me sold for $36,000 on eBay earlier this month.
Close to 350 items were sold at the auction, including Beatles ticket stubs, a gold copy of the Crosby, Stills and Nash 1982 album Daylight Again, autographed sheet music to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" and a guitar used by Journey axeman Neil Schon.
Some of the more coveted items belonged to members of The Ramones. A signed Precisionbass guitar that belonged to Dee Dee Ramone sold for nearly $38,000. The musician used the bass during the band's tours in the 1980s. Joey Ramone's handwritten lyrics to "Maria Bartiromo," about the journalist, were bought for $1,886 by none other than Bartiromo herself. Ramone's signature glasses went for $12,400, his leather pants pulled in $7,100 and his jacket raked in $7,000.
