Heritage Auctions via AP

An auction house photograph shows what is described as a "pristine" copy of The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album autographed by all four members of the band.

Even Lucy and her diamonds can't compete with these riches. A rare, signed copy of The Beatles’ "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" has brought $290,500 at auction, shattering the previous record for such an item.

PHOTOS: The Beatles: Rare Photos Offer Inside Look at Fab Four

The item signed by all four members of the legendary band was purchased Saturday by an unnamed buyer from the Midwest. An anonymous seller parted with the album through the Dallas-based Heritage Auctions, which ahead of the bidding estimated the album would sell for $30,000.

The Fab Four are believed to have signed the cover near the June 1967 release of "Sgt. Pepper's." The previous record for a signed Beatles album cover was the $150,000 paid for a copy of "Meet the Beatles."

PHOTOS: John Lennon: Days in the Life

Ahead of the auction, Beatles expert Perry Cox said of the piece: "With my being thoroughly immersed in Beatles collectibles for over 30 years, it takes something extraordinarily special to excite me, but I consider this to be one of the top two items of Beatles memorabilia I've ever seen -- the other being a signed copy of Meet The Beatles."

The album is a U.K. Parlophone copy with a high gloss cover and gatefold.

Reuters

Singer Elvis Presley is pictured in an undated, autographed publicity photograph.

LOS ANGELES -- Elvis Presley and The Beatles top the list of most-forged celebrity signatures in 2012, with less than half of their autographs for sale certified as genuine, memorabilia authenticators PSA/DNA said on Thursday.

The King and The Fab Four British rockers, who topped the list two years ago when it was last released, joined notable figures such as former U.S. President John F. Kennedy and late pop star Michael Jackson on the list of most-forged celebrity signatures.

Late American astronaut Neil Armstrong landed at No. 3 on the list, after fake Armstrong signatures rose significantly after his death in July.

One reason forgeries of Armstrong's autograph soared was that he rarely signed for fans during his life, Joe Orlando, president of Newport Beach-based PSA/DNA, told Reuters.

"Armstrong is someone who is very conscious of the value of his own autograph," Orlando said. "Even before he passed away he was very tough to get ... It really heightens the level of his market."

Secretaries and assistants responding to huge volumes of fan mail are one reason for fake signatures floating through the marketplace, said Margaret Barrett, director of entertainment and music memorabilia at Heritage Auctions in Los Angeles.

"Back in the day, the kids would write to the movie studios," Barrett said.

5. No stereo for you!
Only a handful of Beatles recordings were never issued in stereo and “Love Me Do” is one of them. Singles were only issued in mono then, so no stereo master was ever made for either version of “Love Me Do” or its B-side, “P.S. I Love You.” They didn’t have the chance to create stereo mixes later on because the tapes were thrown away. According to “Recording Sessions,” it “wasn’t customary” to keep session tapes lying around in 1962. So how did they go about getting “Love Me Do” on CD if there are no tapes of it left? An old 45 record. But a really, really clean one.

Tony Sclafani owns an original U.S. copy of “Love Me Do” on the Tollie label and can be found at www.tonysclafani.com.

Paul Baker/Frank PR

The Beatles stroll across Abbey Road in a version of the famed album cover created with breakfast foods.

Slideshow: Quirks of art: Creators who work in madcap media

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Fox Photos / Getty Images file

John Lennon and Paul McCartney in 1963.

Friendships come, friendships go. But 55 years ago today, two young British men met, and it's not overstating things to say they changed the world.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon met for the first time on July 6, 1957, at the St. Peter Church Fete in Woolton, Liverpool, England. Lennon was playing in his band, the Quarry Men, and a mutual friend and sometimes bandmate, Ivan Vaughan, brought McCartney along and introduced the two.

A plaque on the exterior wall of the church, much-photographed by Beatles fans, tells the story of their meeting, and adds "As John recalled, 'that was the day, the day that I met Paul, that it started moving.'"

The church's cemetery is home to the gravestone that inspired "Eleanor Rigby."

You can watch one Beatles fan's tour of the church and cemetery from 2008 in this You Tube video.

And you can read more about the meeting, plus see a photo of Lennon taken that day, at The Beatles Bible.

Are you fascinated by the Beatles' life stories, or is it all about the music for you? What's your favorite Lennon-McCartney collaboration? Tell us on Facebook.

 Related content:

• Photo shows Beatles going 'wrong way' on Abbey Road
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When the Beatles had to "Get Back" across Abbey Road, who knew that they were being photographed going in the opposite direction from that shown on their 1969 album cover?

Capitol Records

The actual album cover for the Beatles' "Abbey Road."

A rare image now headed for auction is one of just six taken during a 10-minute photoshoot of the Fab Four outside Abbey Road studios in St. John's Wood, northwest London. The photo is expected to fetch up to $14,000 when it's offered on May 22.

In the original image, John Lennon (in his white suit) leads the group from left to right in a crosswalk. A Volkswagen Beetle sits in the background. Ringo Starr follows Lennon. Behind him is a barefoot Paul McCartney and George Harrison brings up the rear. (Want to read more than you ever cared to about why McCartney being barefoot and out of step with the others is actually a clue to his covered-up 1966 death? Do an Internet search of “Paul is dead.”)

In the image up for sale, Lennon leads his bandmates from right to left. Aside from posture and spacing differences, the biggest treat for hardcore fans is that McCartney is seen wearing sandals on his feet.

According to The Guardian website, a police officer held up traffic as the late photographer Iain Macmillan shot the band from a ladder in the street. The Guardian quotes Sarah Wheeler of Bloomsbury Auctions in London: "The photo has been called an icon of the 1960s. I think the reason it became so popular is its simplicity. It's a very simple, stylised shot and is a shot people can relate to."

On The Sun website, Wheeler says Macmillan "was the chosen photographer for the shot because he was friends with Yoko Ono. Paul McCartney drew a sketch of what he wanted the front cover of 'Abbey Road' to look like."

The photo up for auction is one of 25 chromogenic prints made at the time and is being offered by a private music memorabilia collector.

News of the photo comes just a day after Rolling Stone reported that Ringo Starr, who often took candid photos of the band, says he doesn't know the location of his numerous unreleased photographs.

Do you own a great piece of rock 'n' roll memorabilia? Tell us about it on Facebook.

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AP file

The Beatles, preparing to leave London for their American tour in 1965.

The Beatles' first full concert in the United States at the Washington Coliseum in Washington, D.C. will be screened in movie theaters next month, Deadline Hollywood reports. "The Beatles: The Lost Concert" will be shown in a limited engagement at theaters across the United States on May 17 and 22, with a special premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater in Manhattan on May 6.

Photos: Rare Beatles Pictures

The concert film will be proceeded by a documentary on the early rise of Beatlemania in the United States. This portion of the movie will feature new interviews with concert attendees, journalists, historians, assorted Beatles associates and contemporary stars such as Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, Chuck Berry, Mark Ronson and Strokes members Albert Hammond Jr. and Nick Valensi.

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Kevin Winter / Getty Images

Paul McCartney performs at the Grammy Awards held at Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 12.

The Beatles had considered getting back together while all four members were still alive, says Paul McCartney. "There was talk of re-forming the Beatles a couple of times," he tells Rolling Stone, "but it didn't jell, there was not enough passion behind the idea."

According to McCartney, the band was very pleased with having come full circle creatively, and worried about tainting their legacy. "More importantly, it could have spoiled the whole idea of the Beatles, so wrong that they'd be like 'Oh, my God, they weren't any good,'" he says. "The re-formation suggestions were never convincing enough. They were kind of nice when they happened – 'That would be good, yeah' – but then one of us would always not fancy it. And that was enough, because we were the ultimate democracy."

Though the Fab Four never came back together, various combinations of the band's members have played together on various projects and special occasions in the decades since the group disbanded in 1970. Ringo Starr appeared on solo recordings by John Lennon, George Harrison and McCartney, and both Starr and McCartney appeared together on "All These Years Ago," a Harrison song written in memory of Lennon. The three of them also finished a pair of Lennon demos, "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love," for the "Beatles Anthology" series.

Cover story excerpt: Paul McCartney

The individual Beatles also reconnected for one-off live collaborations, including Starr and Harrison's performance together at the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971 and the time when McCartney, Harrison and Starr played "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" at Eric Clapton's wedding in 1979.

McCartney and Lennon reunited briefly for a studio jam session in 1974 that also featured Stevie Wonder, Harry Nilsson, Linda McCartney and Bobby Keys. "We were stoned," McCartney says of the session, which has been immortalized as the bootleg Toot and a Snore. "I don't think there was anyone in that room who wasn't stoned. For some ungodly reason, I decided to get on drums. It was just a party, you know. To use the word 'disorganized' is completely understating it. I might have made a feeble attempt to restore order – "guys, you know, let's think of a song, that would be a good idea' – but I can't remember if I did or not."

To read Brian Hiatt's cover story on Paul McCartney, pick up the March 1, 2012 issue of Rolling Stone, on stands and in Rolling Stone All Access February 17.

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