Here comes the crumb.
A piece of toast that was left behind by late Beatles legend George Harrison on a plate in 1962 has been sold.
The leftover crust was saved by then-15-year-old Sue Houghton and preserved on a scrapbook page, per the Daily Express.
Next to the toast is the caption: “Piece of George’s breakfast 2-8-63.”
That date marked The Beatles’ return to Liverpool, England, after seven weeks away to play at the Grafton Rooms before their last gig at the Cavern Club, where the Fab Four was discovered by manager Brian Epstein.
Houghton had befriended the Harrison family in Liverpool and swiped the breakfast remains from the dining table during a visit to their home. And as an avid Harrison fan, her Beatles scrapbook would also include such remnants as threads from his jeans and fluff from under his bed.
The toasted treasure was first auctioned in 1992 when Houghton sold her Beatles scrapbook at Christie’s for $1,600 to pay for home repairs.
Since then, it changed hands until memorabilia collector Joseph O’Donnell recently acquired it.
He hasn’t revealed what he paid, but he has ensured its preservation by framing it in UV-protected museum-grade glass.
For O’Donnell, the toasted relic is a reminder of the joy and humor that the Fab Four continue to inspire six decades later.
“It’s a brilliant story that is both bizarre, historical and a story I’ll continue telling friends, memorabilia collectors and fellow Beatles fans,” he said, per the outlet.
The leftover toast became an inside joke among The Beatles.
In 1999, Paul McCartney told German newspaper Der Spiegel that his children would tease him about leaving breakfast unfinished, exaggerating the tale of Harrison’s toast by claiming that it sold “for $40,000.”
McCartney said his family would humorously hide his leftover food, saying things like: ‘Dad, you don’t have to finish the bread roll’ or ‘Do you really want half an egg? Let’s clear the table.”
And in 1992, Harrison seemingly debunked the toast tale, telling VOX magazine: “I ate all my toast! I never left any!”
Harrison died of lung cancer in Beverly Hills, California, on Nov. 29, 2011. He was 58.
The Beatles recently won Best Rock Performance at the Grammys for 2023’s “Now and Then,” the first new tune by the Fab Four since 1996’s “Real Love.”
Th song was written and first recorded by John Lennon in the ’70s, and was finished by surviving Beatles McCartney and Ringo Starr with the help of artificial intelligence.
