Abbey Road street sign sells for £37,200

A street sign from London’s world-famous Abbey Road has sold for £37,200 at auction.

The sign had been predicted to sell for between £1,000 and £2,000. The hammer price was £30,000, but the total came to over £37,000 with the addition of buyer’s premium and VAT.

It was one of 275 signs sold on behalf of Westminster City Council. The lots sold for a total of £143,517.

Abbey Road street sign, 2021

The signs were sold in a two-week timed online auction by Catherine Southon Auctioneers & Valuers, in Chislehurst, south east London.

As a south Londoner myself, the project of selling the London street signs has been enormous fun from start to finish, and an honour to be involved in.

I have been absolutely flabbergasted by the interest in the auction and the competitive bidding from all over the world.

Many people have been bidding on the signs because they have a personal link to the street – either they worked there, lived there, or, in some instances, the signs just link to their name.

Whatever the reason, the signs are a wonderful way to connect to one of the most famous cities in the world.

Catherine Southon, auctioneer
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3 Abbey Road is the location of the recording studios in which The Beatles recorded the majority of their music. It was originally a nine-bedroom house built in 1829, but was purchased in 1928 by the Gramophone Company and converted into the world-famous studio.

This is not the first time an Abbey Road street sign has been sold at auction. In December 1981 one sold at Sotheby’s in London for just £320.

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Another sign, dating from May 1970, sold at Bonham’s in December 2013 for £10,625.

Last updated: 5 March 2021
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