A Piece of George Harrison's Uneaten Toast, Which Has Sat in a Scrapbook Since the Early 1960s, Sells to Beatles Fan

Mar. 15, 2025

George Harrison’s toast.Photo:Joseph Robert O’Donnell

Joseph Robert O’Donnell

There’s something in the way he chews!

Joseph O’Donnell, whosewebsitecalls him a “passionate collector of Beatles and music memorabilia,” reportedly paid an undisclosed sum for the bread, which has been kept for the last few decades in a scrapbook and was previously auctioned off in 1991.

“It’s a brilliant story that is both bizarre, historical and a story I’ll continue telling friends, memorabilia collectors and fellow Beatles fans,” O’Donnell told theDaily Express.

The lore goes that a 15-year-old Beatles fan named Sue Houghton was visiting the Harrison family home when she pocketed a piece of crust that the star had left behind on his plate. She then put it in a scrapbook with the caption, “Piece of George’s breakfast. 2-8-63.”

The outlet reports the date in Houghton’s scrapbook as significant, as the Beatles played their final show at Liverpool’s Cavern Club, where they got their start, the very next day.

Guitarist George Harrison of the rock and roll band “The Beatles” poses for a portrait in 1964 in London, England.Cyrus Andrews/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

Cyrus Andrews/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

The Los Angeles Timesreported in 1991 that the toast, as well as a love letterJohn Lennonwrote to his ex-wife Cynthia, fetched $94,800 at an auction in Christie’s in London.

Still, Harrison — who died in November 2001 — joked about the authenticity of the keepsake in a 1992 interview withVOXmagazine, reportedly saying, “I ate all my toast! I never left any!”

A popular Harrison fan page on Instagram called theHarrison Archivequotes Houghton — a young fan who was a regular at the band’s Cavern Club shows — in a 1995 interview with Yeah! magazine, saying she “concentrated on collecting parts of [the Beatles’] everyday life that would only mean something to me, things so minor that they would never miss them.”

The Beatles pose for an early group portrait, backstage, (L-R) Ringo Starr, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, 1962.Harry Hammond/V&A Images/Getty

Harry Hammond/V&A Images/Getty

In that same interview, Houghton reportedly said that Harrison’s mother Louise invited her inside their home because she was a Beatles fan, and quotes her from Mark Lewisohn’s 2013 bookThe Beatles - All These Years - Extended Special Editionsaying Louise also let her rummage around in Harrison’s room whenever she went over to the house.

The page also shared a photo of a letterHarrison allegedly wrote Houghton, in which he thanked her for giving his mom flowers and chocolate. It also included instructions on washing his car, which Hougton later told Yeah! magazine was a joke, as she’d asked Louise if she could clean his car.

Beatle memorabilia continue to be hot-ticket items. In May, a 12-string guitar that Lennon played during the recording ofHelp!in 1964sold for $2.85 million at auction. The instrument had been lost for 50 years before it was discovered, abandoned, in the attic of a home in the British countryside.

source: people.com