Lost Beatles Recording Tapes Up For Auction, Expected to Fetch $500k

Fans of The Beatles could have some incredibly rare recordings in their collections ... if they have half a million to drop in an upcoming auction for the private tracks.

The big-ticket item is a collection of never-before-heard recordings from the iconic group, including band rehearsals at John Lennon's Kenwood home and even pieces of unreleased albums, all on 6 tapes. It's all expected to grab anywhere from $300,000 to $500,000.

The legendary tapes were obtained by a memorabilia collector named Phil from Charlotte, and he tells us he got the recordings 5 years ago from a man in India, who says he first secured them from Derek Taylor ... the group's former press officer who was often dubbed the "Fifth Beatle."

We're told Phil listened through all of it only once, so he wouldn't damage the tapes, but there are a ton of Beatles gems throughout -- including rehearsals for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which has things like animal sounds for "Good Morning Good Morning" and even John and Paul McCartney complaining about the heat.

That's not all, there are also recordings of George Harrison's unreleased album with The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, almost 2 hours of Yoko Ono's "Primal Scream Therapy" -- yeah, really -- and an unreleased collab album with Yoko and John.

There's also an extremely personal and revealing 45-minute interview where John questions Yoko's motives for being with him. It was recorded in 1969, the same year they got married.