TheJakartaPost

Please Update your browser

Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.

Jakarta Post

Signed for his killer, 40 years on John Lennon album is up for auction

Richard Chang (Reuters)
New York, United States
Wed, December 9, 2020

Share This Article

Change Size

Signed for his killer, 40 years on John Lennon album is up for auction In this file photo taken on October 7, 2020 a statue of John Lennon and members of the Beatles stands in central Liverpool, northwest England. (AFP/Paul Ellis)

T

he album signed by John Lennon for his assassin 40 years ago is up for auction in New York, as his widow and former Beatles band mates on Tuesday paid tribute to him.

The copy of Double Fantasy that Lennon signed for Mark David Chapman a few hours before his death on Dec. 8, 1980 is being sold by a private collector through New Jersey-based Goldin Auctions.

Bidding on Tuesday stood at $450,000 but a spokesman said the auction house expected it to sell for about $1.5 million at the close of the online auction on Saturday.

Chapman, a borderline psychotic from Hawaii, shot Lennon four times at close range for what he called "self-glory." The musician was returning home to the Dakota Apartments by Central Park with his wife, Yoko Ono. Lennon, 40, died on the way to hospital.

Goldin Auctions said Chapman had got Lennon to sign the album earlier in the day and then threw it in a planter outside the Dakota Apartments after the shooting. It bears police markings from when it was taken into evidence.

Read also: John Lennon: Rockers' troubled muse, 40 years on

Goldin Auctions called it "arguably the most important Rock N Roll relic ever for sale."

In tributes on Tuesday to the late Beatle, Paul McCartney tweeted; "A sad sad day, but remembering my friend John with the great joy he brought to the world."

Ringo Starr, the other surviving Beatle, said: "I'm asking Every music radio station in the world sometime today play Strawberry Fields Forever. Peace and love."

Ono called for peace and gun law reform and tweeted the photograph she took of Lennon's blood-splattered eyeglasses, with the message: "Over 1,436,000 people have been killed by guns in the USA since John Lennon was shot and killed on Dec. 8, 1980."

{

Your Opinion Matters

Share your experiences, suggestions, and any issues you've encountered on The Jakarta Post. We're here to listen.

Enter at least 30 characters
0 / 30

Thank You

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your feedback.