News

Lennon's Fingerprints Seized by the FBI

• 13th Oct 2010

The world of music memorabilia is a strange one. Almost anything can be purchased if you have sufficient funds available, it seems.

Auction houses and sites routinely sell the run of the mill items such as autographed pictures and albums. But if you look closely you can find items of clothing and even more personal items too.

A Benadryl prescription bottle from 1977 was recently snapped up at a Las Vegas auction for $800, drugs not included. A lot to pay for an empty bottle? But then the name on it was Elvis Pressley.

And many items of musical history go for much larger sums. The rhinestone-encrusted white glove worn by Michael Jackson when he first 'Moonwalked' in 1983 sold for $350,000 (£212,000), for example.

But the FBI has taken one item off the sales list from a recent auction planned to tie in with John Lennon’s 70th birthday – a set of the great man’s fingerprints.

The prints apparently came from 1976 when Lennon applied for US residence, and were in the hands of a private collector in New York. He is now seriously out of pocket as the prints had a minimum price of $100,000 (£63,000).

Before it could be sold the FBI stepped in and seized the fingerprint card, claiming it to be the property of the US Government. The Bureau is apparently curious about how it came to be in a private collection and has launched an investigation to establish how the card went missing.

What a pity. It would have made a lovely talking point in someone’s house.