Ronnie Barker's Classic 'Fork Handles' Script To Go Under The Hammer

The actual hand-written script for arguably the greatest British comedy sketch of all time is to go under the hammer.

Written by Ronnie Barker in the 1970's on 4 pages of A4 lined paper under his alias, Gerald Wiley, Fork Handles (or Four Candles) was first aired on The Two Ronnies show on September 4 1976 and has since gone down in TV comedy folklore as one of the truly iconic moments in television history.

Now, the sketch is to be auctioned by memorabilia specialist, The Original Memorabilia Company, and is expected to reach at least £50,000.

The script first came to light in 2006 on BBC1's Antiques Roadshow. The BBC Antiques expert Mark Allen said "I literally can't contain my excitement...I'm possibly about to hold something very historic...the thought that he actually sat down and wrote this is absolutely amazing".

The BBC subsequently recorded a follow up with the greatest finds of the series and the script headlined the show with a five minute piece with Ronnie Corbett confirming its authenticity." It was quite sweet for me to see his handwriting again... it certainly is his handwriting" said Ronnie Corbett.

For 30 years The Two Ronnies entertained us in a career spanning 98 television shows, 12 series, several Christmas specials and numerous 'Sold Out' London stage shows. Of all the sketches they ever performed, the British public voted 'Fork Handles' 'The Greatest Sketch Of All Time'.

Peter Spicer from The Original Memorabilia Company, said: "The Two Ronnies are a national institution and Ronnie Barker, a comedy genius. We are absolutely thrilled to be auctioning his finest piece of work". "To say this is the television equivalent of Lennon's lyrics to 'Imagine' would not be an unreasonable comparison. We expect it to sell for at least £50,000".

Away from the TV camera, Ronnie Barker was a very private person and would often decline requests for personal appearances, instead preferring to give personal items away. The Fork Handles script, or Annie Finkhouse to give it its original title, is one of a number of original items believed to have been given away by Ronnie Barker in the late 1970s, long before works of this type were regarded to have any value.

Ronnie Barker's widow Joy, has also confirmed she does not have a hand-written copy of Fork Handles in her collection and was happy for this script to be sold.

Hand-written letters and personal documents continue to attract very large prices at auction. George Harrison's handwritten lyrics to the Beatles' song, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, fetched £152,552 in a US memorabilia auction. A letter of surrender signed by Irish rebel Padraig Pearse at the end of the 1916 uprising has sold for almost £500,000 at a Dublin auction and Marlon Brando's personal copy of the screenplay for The Godfather went for £176,000.

The script is neatly written in red ink and takes up four sheets of A4.

For the uninitiated, the sketch features Ronnie Corbett as a shopkeeper in a hardware shop becoming increasingly frustrated by a customer, played by Ronnie Barker, because he continually misunderstands what the customer is requesting.

The auction of the Fork Handles sketch is to take place via the company's website www.originalmemorabilia.co.uk with bids being accepted up to Thursday 20th December 2007 at 1700 hours GMT.

The Original Memorabilia Company specialise in high quality and unusual entertainment memorabilia and official signed limited editions from Fawlty Towers 'The Germans' and Tony Hancock's 'The Blood Donor', to original 1966 stadium seating from the original Wembley stadium.

It’s Official – Guitars Are Better Investments Than Homes!

It’s official – guitars are better investments than homes, says rock ‘n roll memorabilia expert Ted Owen. They’re also better investments than stocks and shares. A 1958 Gibson Explorer bought for $247.50 was sold in 2006 for $611,000. That’s almost a 20% year on year annual return versus an average of 12% for the typical house or the 9% typically produced investing in shares. Adam Newman, manager of Vintage & Rare Guitars says, “Late fifties Les Paul Standards bought for a few hundred dollars could be worth over $300,000 while Pre-War Martin D45’s would fetch over half a million dollars now and bought for $200.”

With rock ‘n roll memorabilia auctions taking place on a regular basis, it’s now easier than ever to purchase a collectable guitar. The recent Gibson Guitartown London exhibition is going under the hammer on 20th November via Ebay and an event being held at the IndigO2 with bidding starting at a very reasonable £250. Some of the more collectable guitars include a Pink Floyd guitar designed by Gerald Scarfe and a Ronnie Wood signed and designed guitar. The recent film ‘Control’ has propelled interest too in the Depeche Mode Anton Corbijn designed guitar.

Says Darren Julien, president of specialist rock ‘n roll memorabilia auction house, Julien’s Auctions, ‘With confidence falling in the housing market, we’ve seen a huge upturn in interest in rock ‘n roll memorabilia . We’ve virtually doubled our database of customers from what it was a year ago. Just last month, a similar auction we held for GuitarTown in Texas saw two guitars going for $55,000 each.’ Now is definitely the time to start collecting and there’s every possibility that one of the guitars going on the 20th Nov may form someone’s future pension.'

All guitars can be seen at : http://tinyurl.com/2ahq55

Pink Floyd and Ronnie Wood Guitars

A host of hand-painted guitars signed by celebrities including Noel Gallagher, Kasabian, Ronnie Wood and Robert Plant are to be put up for auction.

The 30 Gibson SG guitars have been signed by the artists and uniquely designed and hand-painted by artists as one offs.

They're set to be auctioned off at the Gibson Guitartown London Charity Auction, to be held at the IndigO2 on November 20.

The Rolling Stones' Ronnie Wood has hand-painted an SG[/bb] with his pastel rendition of the Royal Albert Hall, while Pink Floyd's Roger Waters' guitar features an exclusive design by 'The Wall' cover art designer Gerald Scarfe.

All money raised from the auction will be split between Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, The Prince's Trust and the Teenage Cancer Trust.

For more information, go to Londonguitartown.com.