The food was in charge of the local supplier Joe Vilardi and they left their mark on the tablecloth John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starrin addition to the folk singer Joan Baez.
Rather than wash it, Vilardi decided to frame and display the piece in the window of his shop, from where it was stolen overnight less than a week later.
More than 50 years of mystery ended in 2021, when Vilardi’s grandson, Michael Vilardi, received a phone call from Texas. “It was a lady, asking if our family had a catering business in San Francisco, and I had a feeling she was going to know something about the tablecloth,” he told the AFP.
The Beatles souvenir tablecloth
the Beatles
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HANDOUT/AFP
the Beatles
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HANDOUT/AFP
the Beatles
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HANDOUT/AFP
the Beatles
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HANDOUT/AFP
“His brother had the tablecloth, he didn’t know what to do with it and he kept it for all these years“, he said. This man had received it as payment of a debt from someone who told him it was valuable, Vilardi said.
“He tried to sell it but since it was stolen he could have had problems, so his sister convinced him to return it.”
Thus, the tablecloth, which was well preserved during his long absence, returned to Vilardi’s hands. “It was a pretty emotional moment because we didn’t know we’d see this again. We’d all grown up hearing the story, but none of us had seen the tablecloth.”
Now this unique piece from The Beatles history, featuring Lennon’s drawing of a yellow sunset and a series of portraits sketched by McCartney and Baez, as well as the signatures of Starr and Harrison, is going up for auction. online.
Bonhams auction house estimates it could fetch as much as $25,000 by the time auction closes on October 19.
The Candlestick Park concert went down in history as the band’s last commercial performance.which announced their separation after this tour of North America.
More than 50 years later, “Beatlemania” lives on, and memorabilia from the group continues to draw interest from fans of all generations and command exorbitant prices at auction.
In 2015, the first record deal signed by the Beatles was sold at auction in New York for $75,000.