Lennon asked the NHS to reinstate his free healthcare

In the 1962 letter he asks Liverpool's NHS office to reinstate his free healthcare after it mistakenly believed Lennon had emigrated.

"In point of fact I left the country only for an engagement (as a musician) in Germany but returned to this country about three months later," he wrote.

The letter is being auctioned by New York-based company momentsintime.com.

Inquiry resolved

Curator Gary Zimet said it came from a private collector, who purchased it from someone in England who had removed it from the NHS files.

Lennon's letter concludes: "I would, therefore, be obliged if you would please return my name to the National Health Service List. Yours faithfully, John Lennon."

Lennon wrote the NHS letter in the year of The Beatles' first hit

Handwritten notes on the letter, reading "not deleted" and "reinstate 25.10.62", show that Lennon's inquiry was quickly resolved.

By the end of the year, Lennon's debut single with the Beatles, Love Me Do, reached number 17 in the UK charts.

Their follow-up single, Please Please Me, went to number one and catapulted the band to fame.

In 2001 an angry letter written by Lennon to Paul McCartney after the break-up of The Beatles was sold for $88,330 (�47,000).