A creased piece of paper signed by all four Beatles during a date in Norwich in 1963 was sold for £1,800 at auction in London yesterday.

A creased piece of paper signed by all four Beatles during a date in Norwich in 1963 was sold for £1,800 at auction in London yesterday. The souvenir was a rare concert flyer for a date at the Grosvenor Rooms on May 17. It was advertised as “Britain's greatest recording and TV stars, The Beatles.”

The poster, measuring eight by five inches, was signed by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr and had been framed. Seven days before the concert the Beatles hit 'From Me To You' reached number one in the British charts, the first single to do so.

The poster had been expected to fetch between £1,500 - £2,500 in an auction of rock and pop memorabilia at Christie's, South Kensington. The sale was 91 per cent sold for £313,512.

It also included a brown paper bag signed by the group during a date in Exeter while on a British tour that year. The band had called at a record shop opposite the cinema where they were due to perform and asked the shop assistant whether their first LP 'Please Please Me' was in stock.

The assistant produced one of the paper bags used to pack records and got the Beatles to sign it. The bag found a buyer for £2,160, comfortably over the £1,500 - £2,000 estimate. Elsewhere, a rare first pressing of the LP went for £1,440.