Piece of toast left behind by George Harrison in 1962 sold to Beatles fan Joseph O’Donnell

According to a report by the Express dated February 26, 2025, a piece of toast left behind by The Beatles' lead guitarist, George Harrison, from 62 years ago, has been sold at an auction. The toast was preserved on a scrapbook page, with John Lennon's guitar case fluff and cigarette butts.

The food item was found by Sue Houghton in 1962, a Beatles fan who was 15 at that time. Houghton befriended the Harrison family, and during a visit to their home, she slipped a piece of unfinished toast on George Harrison's plate into her pocket.

She documented the toast in her scrapbook, writing "Piece of George’s breakfast. 2-8-63". Sue Houghton's scrapbook was first auctioned in 1992 at Christie's for £1,300 to fund her property renovations.

Then, the pages of the scrapbook were split up, and the one consisting of Harrison's toast piece went back on the auction market. The latest owner of the same is Joseph O'Donnell, a memorabilia dealer who hasn't disclosed the amount he spent on the piece of toast. However, Joseph has framed it in museum-grade, UV-protected glass.

Talking to the news portal about the auctioned collectable, Joseph said:

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

The date 2-8-63 written in the scrapbook featuring George Harrison's unfinished piece of toast holds significance in the history of the Beatles, as that was when the group returned to Liverpool after a seven-week long absence to perform at Merseyside’s Grafton Rooms.

The day after— February 9, 1963— was the band's performance at The Cavern Club. The club's manager recalled that time, stating that the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein had promised the band would be back one day— however, that never happened because they rose to popularity.

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"I ate all my toast, I never left any"— Beatles guitarist George Harrison mentioned in a 1992 magazine interview

Instagram page @harrisonarchive posted excerpts from Sue Houghton's interview with Yeah! magazine from 1995.

Following the same, People's report dated February 27, 2025, cited Houghton, who collected George Harrison's unfinished toast piece, mentioning at the time that she concentrated on collecting the Beatles memorabilia from their everyday life that would have a personal meaning to her. Defining the collectables, Houghton said they were "things so minor that they would never miss them.”

Houghton also mentioned an instance of her written interaction with George Harrison, which stemmed from Harrison's mother joking about Houghton washing his Ford Anglia. The same week, Sue Houghton received a letter from the Beatles drummer wherein he had "written tongue-in-cheek instructions on how to wash his car.”

However, in a 1992 interview with Vox Magazine, the same year as the first time Houghton sold her Beatles memorabilia scrapbook, George Harrison denied wasting a piece of toast at breakfast. He told the magazine:

“Well, I never authenticated it! That’s totally bulls*it. I really dislike that. I ate all my toast, I never left any. The madness is the people selling it, and the people actually buying it. It’s Monty Python time: how much would they pay for a piece of sweat? Or a piece of ear wax?”

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A prominent name in the industry, George Harrison joined the Beatles in 1958. After John Lennon's murder in 1980, the drummer kept a low profile. However, he was attacked by an intruder at his property in 1999, which he survived despite enduring multiple stab wounds.

Harrison passed away in 2001 at the age of 58 after losing to cancer. He was treated for throat cancer in 1997 and for lung cancer and a brain tumor in 2001.