John Lennon, one quarter of The Beatles and writer of stone cold classic tracks like ‘It’s So Hard’, ‘Meat City’ and ‘My Mummy’s Dead’, got bumped off this Earth in one of the most oddest of fashions.
How many people’s ghosts can say ‘Well, I got shot dead by a man who asked for my autograph hours before I departed this shitty little planet.’? Not many.
And now, if you’re wealthy and fond of macabre artefacts, you can buy an album covered in murderer’s fingerprints. Yesireebob! An American dealer is selling the copy of John Lennon’s ‘Double Fantasy’ LP which he signed for Mark Chapman the day he thought he should kill a really famous person.
It was just before Christmas in 1980 that Chapman was photographed approaching Lennon to get him to stick his autograph on the Double Fantasy album. Then, later in the day, Chapman shot Lennon outside his home. That’s not a very nice thing to do (even if it did spare us from any potential embarrassing ’80s output from Lennon. Yeah, we’re being a bit selfish on that one).
The dealer, who is selling this grisly piece of pop culture said that the LP was found by a maintenance man in a planter and handed over to police. Officials later returned it to the owner, “with a letter of extreme gratitude from the district attorney”.
A spokesman for the seller says:
“The album is the most extraordinary artefact in rock’n’roll history. I have never come across a piece with such provenance. Police reports, fingerprint documentation, letters from the [district attorney], it goes on and on.”
The original owner sold the LP for $150,000 (?94,000) in 1999, and now, it’s looking like it could fetch up to $850,000 (?535,000).
The chap who is selling the album is keeping his identity secret.
“[He] doesn’t want to be named because he received death threats,”
Not from Chapman though because he’s serving a sentence of 20 years to life and is continually denied parole year on year. Of course, if you want in on Lennon’s death (let’s face, everyone does these days), but can’t afford over a half a million quid to buy one of Lennon’s weakest albums, you should be aware that we’re selling a t-shirt regarding Mark Chapman, to be worn the next time you go watching The Bootleg Beatles.
What do you mean it’s in bad taste? Worse taste than Apple Corps butchering of ‘Real Love’? Give us a break!
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