A coffee-stained piano used by the Beatles when they recorded Paperback Writer at London's Abbey Road studios is expected to sell for more than 100,000 pounds ($172,774), an auction house has said.

The battered Challen upright piano, covered in cigarette burns and coffee stains, can be heard on hits such as Paperback Writer and Tomorrow Never Knows, both recorded in Abbey Road's Studio Three in 1966.

The piano also features on Pink Floyd's 1973 Dark Side of the Moon LP.

"I think it is the first instrument from the Abbey Road Studios to come on the open market," Stephen Maycock, the consultant specialist for Beatles memorabilia at Bonhams auction house said in the Daily Telegraph.

He added that without its association with the studios, the piano would be worth "a very modest sum".

"It is a bit battered and is covered in stains and cigarette burns," he said.

"It has been used and abused - but that gives it character."

The instrument was retired from service in the 1980s and is now set to be sold at auction at the Vintage Goodwood festival in West Sussex, south-east England, on August 15.

Bonhams expects the piano to fetch between 100,000 and 150,000 pounds.

- AFP