The vendor was present for both performances at the A.B.C. Theatre in Hull on 16 October, 1964. Having procured a press pass, he was able to watch the performances from the orchestra pit in front of the stage. During the interval between the earlier and later performance, he was free to wander on to the stage and, with the assistance of one of the band’s entourage [probably Mal Evans], he was allowed to pick up John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s guitars which had been left on stage ready for the next performance. As he picked up the guitars – Lennon would have been playing his 1964 Rickenbacker 325 guitar and McCartney his Hofner Violin Bass – a plectrum fell out of each guitar from where they had been placed between the strings. It was usual for Lennon and McCartney to keep a plectrum tucked in to the strings at this time and various photographs exist of Lennon in particular holding a guitar with plectrum secured under the strings near the neck. The tour manager told him to keep the plectrums as the band had many spares. It was only when retrieving the plectrums out of storage prior to this auction 50 years later that the vendor noticed that John Lennon’s plectrum was scratched with the initials J.L.; accompanied by a document concerning the provenance