Authenticity is Everything

Official Paul McCartney Biography SIGNED! Only One Known To Exist!

ON 26 September 2008, a day after the historic concert of Paul McCartney in Tel Aviv, Israel, I waited in the morning outside the hotel hopping to see Paul for the last time before he leaves to the airport. I brought with me his official biography "Many Years From Now" and hoped that I would succeed to get an autograph in the first page of the book. After waiting a few hours he finally came out with a black marker in his hands. I was the first one who got an autograph. after a few minutes he entered his car and left. Seconds before the car left I waved to Paul for goodbye while he was sitting in the car and opened his window. I was very close to him, he waved me back. I approached and told him: "Paul, get back to Israel, get back to Israel" and he answered me: "I will". He was so cute and so sweet. Here is a picture of the autograph in the first page of the book:

I had two problems with this autograph: first, it's not a nice one. Second, I like hanging my autographs on the wall framed behind glass, but what could I do? tear the page from the book and frame it? I couldn't do that... I hated the thought that the book will be closed on the shelf without being able to see the autograph in my room on the wall. But! My main problem was that it wasn't a beautiful autograph. So, I decided to sell it. I sent it to Perry Cox in the USA to sell it for me. Perry put it on Ebay and wrote in the auction page: "One of the rarest signed Paul books in existence. Incredibly rare. This is the only example of this book autographed by Paul McCartney I have ever offered or seen!". Even Perry Cox had never seen this book autographed! He also wrote: "I have checked this one with Frank Caizzo and he concurs it is indeed authentic. And while the autograph is a bit rushed, it still looks great and is so amazingly rare. You'll probably not see another signed example of this one". I was so excited by his words. I felt I made a history! I was the only one in the world who made Paul sign in his official biography. I was sure that it would end more than 1000$. I was so surprised when it ended only for 560$. If I had known it would end for such a low price, I would have never sold it. Today I regret I sold it. What can I do? Me and my perfectionism.......

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by James on June 15, 2015 at 10:27am

That is a great story, Daniel. I agree with you that if this is in fact the only copy of this book that Paul has signed, or at least known copy, then I would expect it to be worth quite possibly thousands of dollars. However, this here is a good example of the inherent riskiness of selling an item in an open eBay auction without reserve. Most signed copies of his children's book, "High in the Clouds", seem to sell between $800-$900 when a Buy It Now option is used.

Maybe in a major auction house your copy of this book could have sold for lots more money if buyers were made aware of the rarity of this signed copy. However, on eBay, probably most people just viewed it as just a regular Paul signed book. Plus, the signature is not particularly all that eye-appealing which probably caused a little more hesitation from buyers.

But anyway, I do think its rarity should make it worth a whole lot more!