Joe Ephgrave is a visual artist who designed The Beatles’ drum skin placed at the center of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. The drum used on the album cover was sold for 541,250 GBP (1.07M USD), at auction on July 10, 2008 and was thought to be acquired by Paul McCartney.
John Lennon must have owned the drum head at some point because here is a photo of Lennon at his apartment with the drum head hanging on the wall behind him.
Ephgrave actually designed two logos for the drum skins….below is the lesser known “alternate head”. The Beatles chose what became the well-known Pepper logo drum head that appears on the album cover. This is the only studio image taken during the photoshoot with the drum head turned around showing the alternate side.
This alternate drum head is also owned by Paul McCartney and hangs in his London home.
There has been some speculation that Joe Ephgrave does not exist. It is believed that his name ‘Ephgrave’ is a shortened version of ‘Epitaph-grave’, another element hinting toward the whole ‘Paul is Dead‘ scandal. However, Ephgrave is a real English surname, which has been around for over 500 years, allegedly.