The owner of every UK number one single since the chart began said he was disappointed the collection failed to sale at auction.

Stephen Hitchcock, 35, from Brighton, hoped to sell for £25,000 but bidding only reached £22,000 at yesterday night's sale at Abbey Road Studios - £3,000 short of the reserve price.

In contrast, the first guitar Paul McCartney ever played sold for £330,000 at auction. It was thought the instrument would fetch more than £100,000 but it greatly exceeded expectations.

Mr Hitchcock said he remained hopeful a private sale could be negotiated.

The IT consultant inherited the 2,139-item collection, which includes seven-inch and 12-inch singles, cassettes, CDs and MP3s, from his father and grandfather 23 years ago.

He spent the next ten years tracking down and buying any missing items.

The collection comes in professional DJ storage boxes and the 78rpm records can be listened to on an original Pye Black Box from 1955. The digital downloads come with an iPod Nano to play them on.

The first UK number one single, Italian-American crooner Al Martino's Here In My Heart, was bought by Mr Hitchcock's grandfather in 1952.

Every number one in the collection is an original and comes in virtually every format available.

The first number one to be included as a download was Tony Christie's Amarillo from March 2005.

Mr Hitchcock said: "I am still open to offers. "I had an extension done and it cost me £25,000 and I thought it was the perfect time to get my money back.

"The singles take up a fair bit of room and they are all in professional boxes. I will be taking them back home and it would be lovely to sell them to someone local."