A brick from The Cavern Club, a check for £11 (Dh64,09) signed by Ringo Starr, an "authentic" Beatles wig. These and thousands of other objects related to the "Fab Four" are luring Beatles fans to a new museum in Buenos Aires.
The museum is the product of the particular "Beatlemania" obsession of Rodolfo Vazquez, a 53-year-old accountant who became a fan at the age of 10 when he got their Rubber Soul record. "With the song In My Life I fell in love with the Beatles," he said.
Vazquez scooped up all the memorabilia he could find in Buenos Aires about history's most famous rock band, an obsession that grew until he made it into Guinness World Records in 2001 as having the planet's largest collection.
At that point, Guinness noted that he had 5,612 items in the attic of his home in Buenos Aires. His hoard has grown to more than 8,500 records, gadgets, puppets and games since then, more than 2,200 of which are on display in the Beatle Museum that just opened this month on Avenue Corrientes, in an area of the capital where tourists throng.
This storefront museum stands out for the sheer quantity of pieces, carefully arranged in display cases and on the walls. There are objects for all tastes: a box of condoms with the name of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, a wig that says it adjusts to any head size, and signed pictures of the four musicians. "The idea is to show my collection permanently. In a year I would like to rotate the items on display with others from my collection," Vazquez said. "Otherwise all of it would be closed into boxes and trunks without anyone being able to enjoy them."
Getting the chance to show his treasures to fellow fans is immensely satisfying to Vazquez, but he says there's one thing he hasn't been able to do: meet the surviving Beatles themselves. "What I am missing is to shake hands with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, hug them and chat with them a little bit," he said.
"It is what would complete me and I would be the happiest collector on earth."
