The Beatles’ first recording contract is expected to fetch up to $150,000 when it is sold at auction in New York next month.

The deal was signed in Hamburg, Germany, where the band honed their craft performing in the city’s boisterous nightclub district.

The 1961 recording session produced the single My Bonnie. The tune was released only in Germany and never hit the top charts. But the song led directly to the Beatles’sdiscovery back home, a contract with EMI and their first hit, Love Me Do.

Heritage Auctions will auction the six-page contract on September 19.

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