Chasing the Fab Four across the globe was hungry work — good thing the Beatle Belt was there to cinch up those suddenly-roomy trousers. Dame Belt & Bag, Seltaeb’s third licensee, ran through a surprising range of designs — soft black leather with metal medallions, plastic-and-brass loop belts, cord versions with vinyl or silhouette medallions, even vinyl belts in red and blue with the Fab Four’s faces on the buckle.

Pat Boone commissioned artist Leo Jansen’s oil-style portraits of the band — sourced from Peter Hall’s May 1963 photos of John and Paul — then built a nationwide contest around them, flying 30 winners to see the Beatles’ Las Vegas show on August 20, 1964. One of those winners, then-eighth-grader Chris Barnes, still remembers being greeted personally by Boone on the tarmac. By October 1964, Boone had sold 10 million of the portraits.