BEATLES´AWARD USED AS DOORSTOP SOLD FOR £4,600

One of the music industry’s most coveted prizes has sold for £4,600 after 30 years of being used as a doorstop.

The Ivor Novello Award, which was awarded to the Beatles in 1966 for their Yellow Submarine single, sold at an auction in Bristol today.

The valuable award was rescued from a building which was set for demolition in the 1980s.

But the woman who salvaged the abandoned mini statue from a drawer didn’t realise its value and ended up using the prize to prop her door open for the next 30 years.

After years on the floor of the owner’s house it finally came to auction at Dreweatts’ collectors’ sale in Bristol.

Auctioneer Peter Rixon said: “It’s an interesting item for us because it’s something with which most people are at least loosely familiar.

“We spoke to the vendor who found it wrapped in brown paper in a drawer while cleaning an office out in London.

“It was a real chance encounter 30 years ago and she had no clue what it was at the time. Since then it’s been used as a doorstop.

“This type of thing doesn’t tend to come onto mainstream auctions very often.

“It’s an unusual lot and I don’t think you have be particularly musically minded to really appreciate it.”

The Ivor Novello Award is a the stylised bronze figure modelled as Greek mythological character Euterpe, muse of music and lyric poetry.

The 28.5cm figure sits on a stepped circular wooden plinth with a brass plaque beneath engraved “Northern Songs Ltd Yellow Submarine 1966”.

The bronze figure was presented to the Fab Four’s music publishers Northern Songs Ltd in 1966 for excellence in songwriting and composing.

Northern Songs was founded in 1963 by Brian Epstein, John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Dreweatts’ auction house said that the item attracted a lot of interest in-house, on the internet and from abroad.

The award was sold just over the guide price of between £3,000 and £4,000.