Cardboard garden gnome and more

Photo courtesy of Heritage auctions

A cardboard garden gnome from the cover of the Beatles' album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" will hit the auction block on April 18 as part of Heritage Auctions' entertainment and music memorabilia sale. The prop was signed by all four band members following pop artist and designer Peter Blake's album cover photo shoot.

Consignment director Dean Harmeyer calls the figure "a true rarity and a cornerstone piece of any Beatles collection." On the cover, the cardboard gnome sits just to the right of George Harrison's leg.

The gnome was kept as a momento by an assistant to photographer Michael Cooper when the shoot wrapped on March 30, 1967. The item has a buyers premium of $17,500 and a current online bid of $14,000 (online bidding began March 30 and will culminate in a live auction that will run April 18-19). It is expected to hammer for as much as $25,000.

Photo courtesy of Heritage auctions

A special Beatles selection in the auction includes four exceedingly rare lots of animation art relating to The Beatles Cartoon Series (estimates: from $800+ up to $3,000+), which ran on ABC-TV from 1965 to 1967. Included are original production cels, background art, storyboards, and more, which originally came from the collection of veteran animator Frank Andrina, who gifted them to renowned animation sculptor Kent Melton in the 1990s, who has consigned them to the auction.

The process of animating the shows was highly decentralized and spread across several countries to expedite the process, which has made original material from the Beatles cartoon exceedingly difficult to find and very uncommon at auction. In fact, the mini-archive presented here represents more total material from The Beatles Cartoon Series than Heritage has offered in its total history.

The sixties' version Apple wristwatch.

Other lots in the auction are autographed tour programmes and albums, "butcher" versions of "Yesterday....and Today" in various states, in both mono and stereo, an Apple watch (no, not the current iPhone extension), an Apple crate to house the albums, and various memorabilia, vinyl singles. EPs and albums, as well as acetates and the "Our first four" Apple promotional package.

Link to auction