Rare gift from Beatles icon George Harrison fetches thousands at auction

It’s the gift that keeps giving.

An extremely rare vinyl Beatles White Album, originally gifted by George Harrison and then-girlfriend Patty Boyd, has sold at auction for AUD $20, 374 (£10,000).

The album, a very early edition of the Beatles self-titled 1968 release, was sold by Tracks Auctions music memorabilia auctioneers and included a letter from the vendor which describes how they became friends with Harrison and his then-partner, Boyd.

The lot on the auction house’s website shows the name of the band embossed onto the record sleeve along with the serial number 0000012.

Tracks Auctions’ web page describes the item as an “extremely rare low numbered stereo vinyl pressing of The Beatles White Album”.

“Very few copies of the album with this low a number have surfaced to the market, ” the description read.

The note divulged how the vendor, then a fashion photographer in the 1960s, became friends with Harrison and Boyd.

“I’d known Pattie Boyd for some time and I was at her mews flat just off Hyde Park Corner one evening in 1964,” the vendor wrote.

“The phone rang, I answered it, and it was George Harrison calling from the USA where The Beatles were touring.

“Over the course of the next few years we saw quite a lot of each other at restaurants, clubs like Tramp and Crazy E, my flat in London, their house in Esher, later on Friar Park.”

The note then explained how the vendor came to own the copy and it reveals an insight into Harrison’s generosity at the time.

“There was a low number copy of the White Album that they’d brought round to the flat one day and when I spoke to George on the phone I mentioned I had it, he said – ‘keep it, it’s yours’.

Although officially called The Beatles, the self-title double album is commonly called the White Album and was the ninth studio album for the iconic band.

The striking album cover features a plain white sleeve and contains no text or graphics other than the band’s name embossed and the album is noted for its diverse range of genres such as music-hall, proto-metal, avant-garde and folk.

Largely recorded in Abbey Road studios it topped the charts in the UK and the United State and has since gone on to sell over 24 million copies since its 1968 release.

There is no news on who purchased the rare item but cashed up Beatles fans are known to purchase anything associated with their favourite band member, including real estate.

Over the last few years both childhood homes where George Harrison and John Lennon grew up were bought by wealthy fans eager to own the dwellings where their respective talents were honed.

-PA.