This week’s auction roundup covers a lot of ground—a harmonica that predates the British Invasion’s peak, a sealed LP with a wild backstory about its own title, and even a novelty record made by chipmunks. (I may earn a small commission if you purchase through these links.)
1960s Beatles Harmonica with Original Box
Current bid: $237.50 — View on eBay
Harmonicas hold a genuinely underrated place in early Beatles history — John Lennon’s harmonica work is all over the band’s earliest hits, from “Love Me Do” to “Please Please Me,” giving those songs a raw, bluesy edge that set them apart from the polished pop confection crowding the UK charts in 1963. M. Hohner, the German manufacturer behind this piece, was already the dominant name in harmonicas decades before the Beatles came along, which is exactly why licensing deals like this one made commercial sense — pairing an already-trusted, quality instrument brand with the hottest band on the planet.
What makes this particular item fun rather than just another slice of merchandising is the box art itself: George and Paul’s names are accidentally swapped on the packaging, a mix-up that’s apparently consistent across all surviving examples of this box rather than a one-off printing error. That kind of small, repeated mistake is oddly charming from a collector’s standpoint — it’s a little time capsule of how quickly merchandising companies were scrambling to cash in on Beatlemania in the early ‘60s, often without anyone involved having particularly close familiarity with which Beatle was who. Harmonica merchandise from this era doesn’t survive in huge numbers with original packaging intact, since these were marketed as toys and novelties rather than collectibles, so a “Very Good” condition example with the box still present represents a nice, accessible entry point for a new collector who isn’t ready to spend four or five figures on a signed record. It’s a small, playable piece of the actual instrument that shaped the band’s earliest sound. 🎵
Beatles Original Promo ‘My Bonnie’ Disc Jockey Record
Current bid: $314.00 — View on eBay
“My Bonnie” occupies a strange, slightly awkward place in Beatles history, because it isn’t really a Beatles recording in the way most fans think of. These tracks were recorded in 1961 in Hamburg, Germany, credited to “The Beatles with Tony Sheridan” rather than to the band on their own, cut years before they’d signed with EMI or worked with George Martin, back when they were still a backing band grinding through club residencies in Germany’s red-light district.
MGM’s decision to re-release these old Hamburg recordings in the US in 1964 wasn’t about artistic merit — it was pure opportunism, cashing in on Beatlemania’s sudden explosion in America by digging up any recording with the band’s name attached, regardless of how tangential their involvement was.
What elevates this particular copy above a standard commercial pressing is its status as a “Special Disc Jockey Record” — a promotional pressing sent directly to radio stations and DJs rather than sold to the public, explicitly marked “Not for Sale” on the label itself. Promotional pressings like this typically had far smaller print runs than standard retail copies, since they only needed to reach a finite list of radio programmers rather than general record store shelves, which is exactly why NM- examples with clean, unmarked labels are infinitely harder to track down than their retail counterparts. The vintage MGM paper sleeve accompanying the record adds a nice layer of period-correct presentation, the kind of small detail that tells you a previous owner treated this as something worth preserving rather than just another 45 to be played and shelved. 🎙️
Beatles Lot of 48 Unstruck/Unfired Zippo Lighters, 1996 to 2013
Current bid: $480.00 — View on eBay
Zippo’s licensed Beatles lighter series ran for nearly two decades, and this lot represents a comprehensive attempt to assemble the bulk of that run in one purchase — 48 lighters spanning production years from 1996 all the way through 2013. The specific “unstruck/unfired” condition matters enormously to serious Zippo collectors, since the whole appeal of a licensed collectible lighter evaporates the moment it’s actually used as a lighter; flint wear, fuel residue, and the small scuffs that come from pocket carry all permanently reduce a piece’s value the moment it leaves pristine, as-issued condition.
The inclusion of the low-production 2012 “#204B — Beatles Yellow Submarine” edition is a genuine highlight buried inside this larger lot, since limited production runs on novelty collectibles like these tend to create exactly the kind of scarcity that drives long-term collector demand, especially once a specific edition number becomes recognized as particularly hard to find. It’s worth noting the lot isn’t presented as flawless — the listing is upfront that tins for the 1996 through 2006 releases lack their original Beatles-branded slip cases, and a handful of tins show light staining or handling wear, with only the 1996 special edition “Let It Be” lighter-and-keychain set retaining its original slip case (itself showing some staining). 🔥
1964 ‘The Chipmunks Sing the Beatles’ Compact 33 EP
Current bid: $58.00 — View on eBay
Novelty covers were a real cottage industry during peak Beatlemania, and few examples are stranger or more delightfully of-their-era than “The Chipmunks Sing the Beatles,” Liberty Records’ 1964 cash-in pairing the already-massively-popular Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise with the era’s biggest musical phenomenon. What makes this particular listing interesting isn’t the LP itself, though — it’s the format. This is a 7-inch “Compact 33” pressing, a format specifically engineered for special jukeboxes designed to play smaller, 33⅓ RPM records rather than the standard 45 RPM singles jukeboxes typically housed.
Compact 33 jukebox records occupy an obscure corner of vinyl history; the format never caught on widely and existed mainly to let certain jukebox operators offer full-length or extended-play content without retooling their machines for standard LPs, which means surviving examples in any condition are inherently scarcer than the standard LP version of the same title. This particular copy includes both an intact title strip and mini-picture card, the small paper inserts jukebox operators used to display song selections to customers browsing the machine — pieces of ephemera that are exceptionally easy to lose or damage over six decades and rarely survive intact alongside the record itself. The listing notes the EP will play on conventional turntables despite its jukebox-specific origin, which is a helpful practical detail for anyone hoping to actually enjoy Alvin, Simon, and Theodore’s earnest attempt at “A Hard Day’s Night” rather than just displaying it. 🐿️
The Beatles Yellow Submarine Series 2 McFarlane Toys 2000, Sealed Set of 4 Figures
Current bid: $82.18 — View on eBay
McFarlane Toys built its reputation in the late ‘90s and early 2000s on detailed, sculpt-forward figures aimed squarely at adult collectors rather than children, and this Yellow Submarine Series 2 set fits that mold precisely — translating the trippy, psychedelic character designs from the 1968 animated film into individually sculpted figures for John, Paul, George, and Ringo, complete with an accompanying monster figure pulled from the film’s own surreal visual world.
Yellow Submarine’s animation style remains one of the most distinctive and immediately recognizable visual takes on the band ever produced, and McFarlane’s sculpts lean into that exaggerated, colorful aesthetic rather than attempting anything photorealistic.
The seller notes these were hand-picked at a KB Toys location sometime in the 2000s, which places this set squarely within the era when KB Toys was still a major mall retail chain before its eventual bankruptcy and closure later in the decade — a small detail that inadvertently marks this as a genuine artifact of a specific, now-vanished retail landscape as much as a Beatles collectible. A sealed set of licensed figures like this holds value precisely because collectors of adult-market action figures overwhelmingly prize unopened, mint-in-box condition; once a set is opened even carefully, it permanently loses the premium that sealed packaging commands among serious McFarlane collectors. For anyone drawn to the visual world of Yellow Submarine specifically, rather than to autographs or vinyl, this represents an accessible way to own a well-regarded piece of the film’s merchandising legacy at a fraction of what signed memorabilia commands. 💛
Beatles US 1970 ‘Hey Jude’ LP w/ Rare Sticker, Sealed
Current bid: $991.00 — View on eBay
This listing hides a genuinely strange piece of Apple Records history behind its plain title. The compilation album now universally known as “Hey Jude” wasn’t originally supposed to be called that at all — the actual title pressed onto the record labels themselves reads “The Beatles Again,” which was the working title right up until a last-minute decision changed the album’s name to “Hey Jude” for its 1970 release. That means any sealed, unopened copy of this LP is quietly preserving a title that Apple Records itself abandoned at the eleventh hour, with the vinyl inside still carrying the discarded name.
The specific sticker featured on this copy adds another layer of specificity that serious collectors care about — the larger 9¾” x 2” red “Hey Jude” print sticker applied to the shrinkwrap, as opposed to smaller variant stickers that appeared on other pressings from the same era. Factory-sealed copies of any Beatles album become exponentially harder to find the further you get from the original release date, since the entire point of owning a record was, historically, to actually play it — sealed examples only exist today because someone, somewhere, chose not to open a copy they bought new in 1970, then held onto it carefully for over five decades. The seller’s claim of four sharp corners and a complete, undamaged shrinkwrap addresses the two most common condition issues that plague vintage sealed vinyl, since corner damage and wrap deterioration are usually what separate a “near mint” claim from a truly investment-grade example. 📀