By Elizabeth Howcroft

LONDON (Reuters] – Julian Lennon, John Lenon’s younger brother is auctioning pieces of Beatles memorabilia. This includes three guitars he was given by his father as well handwritten notes on the song “Hey Jude”, which he recorded in 1968.

The auction will instead be a sale non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. This is a digital asset type. Every winning bidder will have the opportunity to own a digital file that Julian Lennon calls an “audio/visual collector” and in which he narrates “specific, heartfelt memories”.

Julian Lennon is an artist, singer, and writer.

“Through the NFT Collection, I am able to give exclusive access to items I treasure and continue to carry on my father’s legacy in a new manner.”

Blockchain is used to track who has a particular digital file (e.g., an image or video) using non-fungible tokens.

NFTs can sometimes be sold with physical items as a digital certificate of authenticity. However, ownership of an NFT doesn’t confer any rights to the item itself.

These sales however have exploded in popularity with NFT art selling for millions.

Buyers of Beatles NFTs won’t receive any guitar or paper. They will receive a block of data that records the fact that each crypto wallet has an NFT and a digital file containing the item.

According to the auction website, for Paul McCartney’s “Hey Jude” notes that show his doodles or drawings, the buyer will get an NFT (not a photo) of the object, “brought back to life through Julian Lennon’s unique audio narration”.

On Tuesday afternoon, bids for this NFT stood at $55,000

Julian spoke out in an interview on Tuesday with Reuters, saying that it helped him to see Dad the same way he did when he was a little boy and how he looked when i was older.

It was such a special experience for me.

A NFT is also available that represents John Lenon’s Afghan-style Afghan coat worn on film set for 1967’s “Magical Mystery Tour” as well as an NFT of Lenon’s black cape worn in “Help!” 1965. Last auctions were held at $8,000 & $6,000 respective.

Traditional auction houses like Christie’s have been forced to sell NFT assets due to a growing interest in crypto assets. Julien’s Auctions, YellowHeart NFT manage the Lennon auction and it closes February 7.

Online or in person, you can place bids at an auction in Beverly Hills. Payouts can be made in many cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, ether or dogecoin.

Unspecified proceeds from the sale will go to the White Feather Foundation. Julian Lennon stated in a tweet that the White Feather Foundation would donate a portion to offset the carbon emissions associated with the auction through a carbon-removal marketplace named Nori.

NFTs and cryptocurrency have been criticised for having large carbon footprints.