Despite the “1964” front design showing the Beatles with “FLY BOAC,” flip this 6½” x 4¾” dish over, and the truth appears: a British Airways backstamp. BOAC and BEA didn’t merge into British Airways until 1974 — a decade after the tour it depicts. The lowercase “a” logo style and Wedgwood’s EC 1040 code date it to the mid-to-late ’70s, likely part of a wave of British Invasion nostalgia souvenirs, not an actual 1964 item.

Recorded the day after the Beatles’ Ed Sullivan debut and rushed out on Capitol Records within a month, “A Letter to the Beatles” captures a very specific moment of mid-’60s panic. The Four Preps — the West Coast group behind “26 Miles (Santa Catalina)” — watched the British Invasion threaten their own fanbase, and Stu Phillips produced their musical response in real time.

Oriole Records famously turned down the Beatles in 1962 — then rushed out this fan-song answer to “She Loves You” in 1964. Studio group The Carefrees (built by producer Reg Warburton, based on “We Love You Conrad” from Bye Bye Birdie) got a “MISS!” from UK’s Juke Box Jury, but the U.S. release hit #39 on Billboard — making it the most successful Beatles novelty record ever, and the only one to crack the Top 40.

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.

NEMS-licensed calendars came in surprising variety — from a 10”x12” Louis F. Dow “salesman sample” with blank space for advertisers to print their own business info, to an 11¼”x19¾” glossy 1964 edition starting in March with band bios and “How To Write The Beatles” notes. A redesigned 1966 version rearranged the lineup and added musical-note graphics, while Dow’s promotional kits offered vendors six sizes to choose from.

This squeeze-open coin purse from New Items Company Inc. (1964) came in red or black thick plastic and featured Beatles headshots and facsimile autographs. Genuine originals have rounded bottom edges and white-ink graphics; reproductions—common in red, black, blue, and purple—have square corners, black-print graphics, and a hidden metal clasp, unlike the originals' thicker, clasp-free construction.

Written and recorded on February 13, 1964, by the Holland-Dozier-Holland-Taylor team at Hitsville U.S.A., this Motown Beatlemania cash-in was slated for release on V.I.P. Records — until Berry Gordy’s team scrapped it before shipping, wary of the label’s reputation. Locked away for nearly 40 years, it finally surfaced on R. Dean Taylor’s 2001 Essential Collection, with Taylor later admitting it was made as a quick joke, not a serious hit.

Unlike the hundreds of licenses NEMS and Seltaeb issued across the West, Japan saw none — local companies had already trademarked “The Beatles” under Japan’s first-to-file system before NEMS could register. The result: a market split between export-only toys made for U.S. firms like Remco, unlicensed local novelties NEMS couldn’t stop, and official items limited to imports and 1966 Budokan tour merchandise like flags and programs.

This 11” cardboard tube let fans “hum along” to their favorite tunes through a colored flared mouthpiece (red, the rarest of four colors). Manufactured by Louis F. Dow under an NEMS license, the idea actually came from Merrimaker Corp., which traded away broad U.S. rights in exchange for exclusive resale privileges — a deal that later spun off a “Beatles Paper Hat” promo for a Chicago soft-drink bottler.

Best known for sports games, Subbuteo pivoted in 1964 to hand sculptor Charles Stadden eight days to craft 2½” figures of the band for “The Pop Stars In Miniature Series.” The UK got standing plastic figures; the U.S. got pin-back versions sold as “Beatles Official Pins,” complete with countertop display cards. UK sales flopped — killing plans for similar Cilla Black or Dave Clark Five figures — but American teens made the pins a hit.