A RARE Beatles record donated to a charity shop has sold for almost £10,000... the highest selling item in the charity’s history.

British Heart Foundation staff at the store in North Street, Midhurst, were shocked when they found someone had dropped off a plastic bag containing the hugely valuable “Love Me Do” Beatles demo worth thousands.

The record was one of 47 others donated.

But the Beatles record was by far the “holy grail”, according to area manager for the charity, Preston Davies.

He said: “We just could not believe it.

“This is the highest selling item the British Heart Foundation has sold on its Ebay page in its entire history.

“There were others including The Rolling Stones and other Beatles albums but this one was by far the standout item.”

The staff posted the item on the online buying and selling websiteon March 3.

The starting price was £999.99. But the 24 bidders, who made 64 bids between them, brought the final sale price up to a staggering £9,400.

Preston said: “All of the money is of course going back to the charity which has just made all those who work for it really pleased. I have an idea of who might have bought it.

“It’s only a possibility, but we think the person who bid for it and won wanted to get it back to the Beatles Museum in Liverpool.

“I guess we can wait a bit and see if it ends up there.”

Preston said it’s difficult to judge whether the person who donated the records knew what they were doing.

He said: “We have so many people coming in donating things for different reasons.

“Its difficult to know if they had no idea or had the intention to leave it in our hands.

“If they did have that intention it would be amazing to meet them and to know someone did that.”

Preston said he felt fortunate staff are given training about what to look for when it comes to rare vinyl records that could be worth a lot of money.

He said: “That would have been a pretty crazy miss if we hadn’t spotted that.”

The record features a misspelling of Paul McCartney’s name, with the words ‘Lennon–McArtney’ appearing on the label instead.

The words ‘Demonstration Record’ and ‘Not For Sale’ are also on the label.