A cartoon depicting Paul McCartney being searched for pot by airport customs and with an autograph from the singer appeared on Antiques Roadshow season 46, episode 2 on Sunday, Oct., 5. The cartoon was valued between £2,000 – 3,000 ($2,437.12 – 3,655.71 USD).
On the episode, Antiques Roadshow traveled to Crystal Palace Park in the heart of southeast London, revealing all sorts of treasures including a cigar once belonging to Winston Churchill and vintage Vivienne Westwood outfits.
A guest arrived and said her father Pete was a cartoonist for over 30 years, and that one of his cartoons depicted Paul McCartney. The cartoon shows McCartney being searched by airport customs for pot in his luggage—drawn when The Beatles star and his late wife Linda were arrested for 10 grams of pot in 1984 in Barbados. It’s a single-frame cartoon similar to The Far Side. McCartney was apparently amused by it and signed the cartoon, pumping up the cartoon’s valuation dramatically.
“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away,” the cartoon reads. Pete drew McCartney being questioned by customs officials and singing sadly. The authorities emptied his luggage and placed what looks like a film canister and a little pile of weed on the table in the cartoon. There’s a newspaper on the floor that reads “Ex-Beatle Barbados Drug Sample…”
At the bottom of the cartoon, it says “Play the pipes of peace”, a reference to “Pipes of Peace,” his No. 1 single on the UK Billboard at the time. “Yesterday” is one of 32 No. 1 songs composed or co-written by Paul McCartney—the most covered song of all time, according to Newsweek.
Antiques Roadshow antiques expert and frequent guest Hilary Kay was delighted by the cartoon of The Beatles star. “In turning it over, this is really nice, because it looks like a piece of HMRC notepaper, it’s got …
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Author: Benjamin M. Adams / High Times
