Words by Riley Fitzgerald
Graphic by Press

In the face of global financial ruin, death, and other coronavirus related misery interest in Beatles memorabilia is skyrocketing.

“When Italy shut down early last week, we’ve noticed a spike of Italians registering to bid and buying catalogs,” Darren Julien, founder of U.S.-based auction house Julien’s Auctions, informed new service Reuters on Monday.

This April Juliens will be auctioning 200 items of Beatles memorabilia, including a pair of pants once owned by John Lennon, a baseball glove signed by each member of the Fab Four and a dismantled stage from one of the band’s earliest performances.

The most valuable item, Paul McCartney‘s original handwritten lyrics to the Beatles 1968 hit single ‘Hey Jude‘, which is expected to sell for as much as $200,000.

(The most expensive Beatles item to ever pass under the hammer was John Lennon’s Gibson J-160E guitar, which sold for $2.4 million in 2015.)

With millions across the world self-isolation in the bid to combat the virus, bidding registrations and bids have risen dramatically.

By Reuters account, this is in some cases as much as 10 times more than what usually would be expected.

“People are looking for a reason to be happy and excited and get out of the routine of being locked up in their homes,” Darren Julien speculates.

Julien also adds that Beatles and other pop memorabilia may be presenting a surer option for investment as stocks in oil and other markets decline.

“We noticed when the stock market crashed in 2008,” he shares, “we had a record years in 2008 and 2009, and that was because people with wealth were looking for ways to diversify.”

This would place the memorabilia trade beside market beside the art market, which, with little traditional no correlation to the stock market, is also seen as a good means of investment folio diversification.

John Lennon‘s pants a surer bet than oil?

There you have it.

Full details on the auction here.