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On a pretty regular basis, Omega Auctions – ‘proud to be one of the top auction houses worldwide for music memorabilia’ – auction items associated with the Beatles. In March 2019, for instance, they took £3,600 at auction for a Quarrymen business card, £2,640 for a programme for the 1963 Northwich Carnival and Gala (‘where the Beatles crowned the Carnival Queen’) and £48,800 for Paul McCartney’s English Literature schoolbook.

The catalogue for their sale on 5 November 2011 included a more peculiar item:

Courtesy of Omega Auctions

JOHN LENNON TOOTH – this truly unique piece of memorabilia, a tooth of John Lennon’s, was given to his housekeeper, Dorothy (Dot) Jarlett during her employment as housekeeper at his Kenwood home in Weybridge, Surrey. Dot was employed at Kenwood approximately between 1964 and 1968. John had a warm relationship with Dot and her family, often referring to her as ‘Aunty Dot’ and even naming his dog Bernard after Dot’s husband. John was to give many gifts to Dot and her family over the years, some of which have previously been sold by the family through Sotheby’s. The tooth, being such a rare item, has been kept in the family until now and comes with a sworn legal affidavit by Dot Jarlett attesting to the authenticity of the item. The tooth was given to Dot as a souvenir for her daughter who was a huge Beatles fan. The tooth is discoloured and contains an obvious cavity.

Estimate: £10,000–£20,000

‘It was by far the most weird and wonderful item we have ever had submitted to us,’ recalled the auctioneer, Paul Fairweather. ‘It was a very tense bid towards the end, and a huge cheer rang out when the final bid was made.’

The successful bidder was Dr Michael Zuk, a dentist from Alberta, Canada, who paid £19,000.1 At the time, Dr Zuk said he planned to display the tooth in his surgery, before taking it on a tour of dental schools.

It might seem strange, or at any rate unusually zealous, for any dentist to spend so much money on a discoloured tooth in order to take it on tour. But in fact Dr Zuk had another, more crafty, plan in mind.

‘I am looking for people who believe they are John Lennon’s child and have a claim to his estate and hopefully I can legitimise their claim,’ he announced seven years later. ‘John was a very popular guy who was having sex with lots of women, and I doubt birth control was on his mind. I would ask anyone who is participating to sign a commission agreement which would mean if they were related they would pay my company a percentage of their inheritance, like a finder’s fee.’

Dr Zuk said he planned to extract DNA from the discoloured tooth; in the event of a match he would seek a settlement from Lennon Inc., which had recently recorded an annual income of £10 million from holdings of £400 million. He recognised that Yoko Ono Lennon would, in all likelihood, express ‘huge concern’ at any such claim. On an earlier occasion, when he publicly suggested cloning John Lennon from the tooth, he had received a stiff letter from her solicitor.

He added that he was searching for men or women in their fifties, born at a time ‘when young women were throwing themselves at the Fab Four’. He had, he explained, already been contacted by a woman who claimed to be the daughter of John Lennon, but her claim had been based only on anecdotal evidence. ‘I want to hold off testing until I have a small group of hopefuls, or one with a very high supporting story.’

Now based in New York, Dr Zuk confessed to purchasing the tooth as a businessman rather than as a fan. It was, he said, ‘a business opportunity. I bought the tooth not because it’s a stinky rotten tooth. I was thinking, “How can I turn this into something which pays for itself?”’

1 By chance, a year earlier Sir Winston Churchill’s set of false teeth had sold for £15,200.