Beatles memorabilia found inside suitcase from flea market

All you need is luck.

A vacationer who purchased a suitcase at an Australian flea market found a trove of Beatles memorabilia inside, including photos, concert programs and unreleased recordings, London’s The Times newspaper reported.

While the materials have yet to be authenticated, some experts believe the collection is the lost “Mal Evans archive,” originally belonging to the Beatles’ roadie and recording engineer.

Evans was killed by police in Los Angeles in 1976 after he had brandished a fake gun. His belongings were lost during the police investigation.

Fraser Claughton, 41, from Tinkerton, England, bought the suitcase in a small town outside Melbourne for about $36.

“It’s like finding the end of the rainbow in Australia,” The Times quoted Claughton as saying. “I spotted one tatty old suitcase, which frankly I wouldn’t have given house room, but when I picked it up there was something in it.”

The 4 1/2 -hour reel-to-reel tape recording includes John Lennon and Paul McCartney experimenting with previously unrecorded tracks, plus new versions of “We Can Work It Out” and “Cry Baby Cry.”

The Times put an extract from another of the newly discovered recordings, “I’m in Love,” on its Web site ( www.timesonline.co.uk). The Lennon-McCartney song was never released by The Beatles but was released by another Liverpool band, The Fourmost.

The tapes, labeled “Abbey Road … not for release,” will be evaluated by the Beatles’ record label, Apple, and examined by experts to determine their origin and authenticity.