Beatles items smash sale targets

The market for Beatles memorabilia is lucrative

A leather collar worn by John Lennon during the late 1960s has fetched £117,250 at auction - nearly eight times its expected sale price.

A signed copy of a management deal involving the Beatles and their manager Brian Epstein also smashed its estimate, reaching £122,850.

A Vox Kensington guitar used by Lennon and George Harrison went for £100,000.

The sale at Christie's in London was the most successful pop auction in the company's history, making £788,643.

Christie's head of popular entertainment Sarah Hodgson said there had been "frenzied" bidding from international collectors throughout the sale.

Private collector

The Beatles management deal memorabilia is dated 1 October 1962 - a period at the beginnings of the group's recording career.

Estimated to fetch no more than £35,000, it was bought by a British private collector for more than three times that amount.

The Lennon neckwear, which he wore throughout 1967 and 1968, went to a private collector in the US.

A coloured felt-pen drawing by Lennon fetched £10,000; a letter with his signature £5,500; and a pen-and-ink drawing called Happy Fish, £9,500.

An early Elvis Presley US concert poster sold for £10,000, while a Salvador Dali-inspired watercolour by former Sex Pistol Sid Vicious fetched £1,600. A poster from Jimi Hendrix's Experience concert sold for £1,500.