though i saved all my tickets stubs, newspaper articles, etc from the time the beatles arrived, this letter is my favorite peice of beatles memorabilia. i wish i could say i owned the original but i don't. a friend of mine who owns it gave me a copy of it because he knew i was at the airport and on the observation deck the day that the beatles arrived and you'll see why that's relevant in a minute. this letter was written by a man named gerry shea who was the british navigator on the plane that flew the beatles to america on february 7, 1964. he wrote this letter to his young cousin monica telling her that the beatles were on board and on their way to america for the first time. it's even a cooler letter because being the plane's navigator he actually listed the exact time he was writing the letter which was approximately one hour before the beatles landed for the first time in the USA at 1:21 pm. remember....they had no clue at this point how they would be received here. to clarify, when he talks about them singing on the plane, believe it or not in those days they had pianos and bars on planes! after the letter i have included the envelope which he used to mail the letter and the beatles autographs addressed to monica. what i still want to know is how "monica" could have let this precious piece of memorabilia out of her hands. i can only assume that she's no longer a fan. deezee
if you knew how badly i SUCKED at typing, you wouldn't ask me to type this out for you but here goes.... part of the reason that this is hard to read is that it written on the stationary of the time which was kind of like a light weight onion skin so the writing on one side shows through to the other. here's what it says: "dear monica good news-i have the beatles on board and we are up in the air now about one hour away from new york. the flight has been a good one so far. we left london airport at 11am and sure enough there were hordes of screaming girls. the b's boarded safely however- they are very nice monica; fine lads. i had a chat with each of them and told them of you. i told paul especially that he was your favorite, they all send their greetings to you and don't be surprised if they all pop into woolworths to see you some day. excuse my poor writing as the air is a little bit rough here. i am enclosing the card they signed just for you. they said they were delighted to do it. i sure hope that you are still living at this address because i would not want your autographs to get lost. the beatles are going to be in ny (new york) 10 days. they did some singing in the lounge on the plane-quite good too. i hope that you, ann, mrs. voss, olive, etc etc are well. please give my best wishes to all of them and to mary white if you get to see her. hope to be seeing you all again at the end of the month. both the beatles and i send our love to you. keep well. gerry shea" deezee
that is awesome, i have a beatles music box that plays yesturday, you memorabilia makes mine look like crap LOL
well personally i think that your treasure is great and i'd love to have one. besides..there have to be some perks for being an old hippie. i have an idea.... you can have this letter if i get to be 21 again. swap? lol...... deezee
Wow... that is so cool! (BTW--George's signature is very perdy ) haha, my dad has a bronze statue of John's head... it's really nifty although part of his nose fell off when he moved once... I wish I could have been there to experience Beatlemania!!! (Or at least been around when all of them were alive... meh)
Some time ago, on the Antiques Roadshow, a person brought in a letter written during the 1880's I believe. The was written while in transit in a wagon train, on the trail decribing what was occuring and mailed it at the first opportunity. What made the letter valuable is that fact it was written while the writer was still traveling on the trail. Many documents and diaries has surfaced after the fact when the journey was completed, but very few during the trip. Your friend has a letter written while the flight was still in the air. Only a certain number of people in the plane with the Beatles. The maximum number of memorabilia is limited to the maximum number of passengers on that flight. I could only believe the value of the letter is increased for this reason. She might want to consider finding the best way of professionally preserving the letter and maybe even having it insured.
hey ole_goat luckily my friend is one of the world's biggest rock collectors and has this in a temperature controlled vault along with things that would curl your hair if you love rock and roll. when the rock and roll hall of fame opened in cleveland, he and yoko were the only contributors to the beatles exhibit on display. his collection covers all big artists and is worth in the high 6 figures. but the reason we are friends is that he constantly says that he would trade it all tomorrow to have been standing on that platform with me on february 7 1964. he's got his priorities straight as far as i'm concerned.....money canbuy you lots of things but it can't buy the memories i have. deezee
