The most valuable guitars ever sold at auction

By editorial board on July 24, 2023

Guitars formerly owned and played by Jimi Hendrix, Beatles, Jerry Garcia, Clapton have all commanded stratospheric prices.

Eric Clapton guitars are by far the most valuable auction listing, and his Fender Stratocaster "Blackie"  built from the best bits of three vintage Stratocasters   is his most valuable guitar to date ($959,500) -  ( Source newatlas.com To read the full article by Mike Hanlon click here)

 

 

 

"Reach Out to Asia" Fender Stratocaster

Price: US$2,700,000
Auctioned: 16 November, 2005 in one-off "Reach out to Asia" charity auction
: Signed by Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian May, Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, Jeff Beck, Pete Townsend, Mark Knopfler, Ray Davis, Liam Gallagher, Ronnie Wood, Tony Iommi, Angus & Malcolm Young, Paul McCartney, Sting, Ritchie Blackmore, Def Leppard, and Bryan Adams.

Bob Marley's Washburn 22 Series Hawk
Price: US $1,200,000 (unconfirmed )
We cannot verify anything about this guitar's sale, despite it appearing on most top 10 guitar lists,

Keith Richards' Gibson 1959 Les Paul Standard

Price: $1,000,000+ (private sale - unconfirmed)
with known usage by Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page.
Purchased second-hand by Richards was used throughout the Rolling Stones' US tours of 1964, Ed Sullivan Show television appearance and was used on Little Red Rooster, Time is on My Side, The Last Time, Get Off My Cloud, Let's Spend the Night Together " Despite a host of famous users such as Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Peter Green, Paul Kossoff, Billy Gibbons, Joe Walsh, Mark Knopfler, Ace Frehley and Mike Bloomfield, it's Keith Richards' 1959 Les Paul Standard with a retro-fitted Bigsby that has become one of the most expensive Les Paul Guitar of all-time,

Bob Dylan's "Newport Folk Festival" Stratocaster

Price: $965,000
Auctioned: 6 December, 2013 (Christies)
: The Fender Stratocaster which Bob Dylan used in his infamous "electric" performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival
It was the first time Dylan had performed with an electric backing band, ( and it was, according to Rolling Stone magazine, "one of the most notable events in music history

.
Eric Clapton's "Blackie" Stratocaster Hybrid

Price: $959,500
Auctioned: 24 June, 2004 (Christies)
: Used both on stage and in the studio from the early seventies to the mid eighties by Eric Clapton. Blackie shared the stage with Carlos Santana, Freddy King, The Band, Bob Dylan and Muddy Waters to name a few. Clapton recorded numerous albums on Blackie, including '61 Ocean Boulevard,' 'Slowhandowhand,' 'No Reason To Cry' and 'Just One Night.'
Blackie is a hybrid made up from the best bits of several vintage stratocasters. The legend goes that one day Clapton wandered into a a guitar shop in Texas, buying six vintage Fender Stratocasters for $100 each. He gave one each to George Harrison (The Beatles), Pete Townshend (The Who), and Stevie Winwood (Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Blind Faith) and constructed Blackie from the other three.

Blackie is special in many ways. Clapton told Dan Forte in a 1985 interview published in Guitar Player: "I feel that that guitar has become part of me. I get offered guitars and endorsements come along every now and then. [A guitar maker] tried to get me interested in a fairly revolutionary guitar. I tried it, and liked it, and played it on stage – liked it a lot. But while I was doing that, I was thinking 'Well, Blackie is back there. If I get into this guitar too deeply, it's tricky, because then I won't be able to go back to Blackie. And what will happen to that?' This all happens in my head while I'm actually playing [laughs]. I can be miles away thinking about this stuff, and suddenly I shut down and say, 'This is enough. No more. Nice new guitar. Sorry. You're very nice, but...' That's when I drag the old one back on, and suddenly it's just like jumping into a warm pool of water."

 Jerry Garcia's Doug Irwin "Tiger"

Price: $957,500
Auctioned: 8 May, 2002 (Guernseys)
: A unique custom guitar made by master Luthier Doug Irwin and the primary guitar of Grateful Dead lead guitarist Jerry Garcia from 1979 to 1985. The last guitar Garcia played publicly.
Though Irwin built five guitars for Garcia, two guitars in particular were used for the majority of his work, being Tiger (his main guitar from 1979 to 1989) and Rosebud (his main guitar from 1990 to

  Eric Clapton's 1964 Gibson ES-335 TDC

Price: $847,500
Auctioned: 24 June 2004 (Christies)
: Originally purchased by Clapton in 1964, this hollow-body electric guitar was used throughout his career, playing a role in the music of the Yardbirds, Cream, Blind Faith, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and his post-addiction solo career, becoming one of Slowhand's principal stage-used guitars during the nineties.

Clapton used this guitar extensively with Blind Faith in recording sessions and on stage during the Scandinavian and US Tours
Estimated to sell for between $60,000 and $80,000, the guitar smashed estimates to sell for $847,500 at the famous Crossroads Guitar Auction held by Christies on 24 June 2004 at the Rockefeller Plaza in New York.

Jerry Garcia's Doug Irwin "Wolf"

Price: $789,500
Auctioned: 8 May, 2002 (Guernseys)
: Jerry Garcia's first custom made guitar, made by Doug Irwin,

Lennon & Harrison 1962 Rickenbacker 425

Price: $657,000
Auctioned: 17 May 17, 2014 (Julien's)
Used during the Beatles' live performances of 'Twist And Shout', 'I'll Get You' and 'She Loves You'  'I Want To Hold Your Hand' and reverse side of the single, 'This Boy'.

This 1962 Rickenbacker was purchased by George Harrison in September 1963 at Red Fenton's Music Store in Mount Vernon, Illinois, while on a two-week visit to see his sister, Louise. Beatlemania was just beginning and Harrison met a few other young musicians during his stay and told them about his interest in buying a Rickenbacker. Harrison looked at Fenton's selection and chose the guitar he liked, but it wasn't available in his preferred black (to match Lennon's black Rickenbacker).
Harrison played this guitar as The Beatles recorded I Want to Hold Your Hand at Abbey Road Studios. This song, The Beatles' fifth single, gave the band its break in the US market. The same session produced the recording of This Boy.
John Lennon also played the guitar backstage at a performance in Glasgow, Scotland, on October 5, 1963. A photograph published in an August 1964 Beat Monthly magazine shows Lennon with this guitar.
  Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Lenny" Stratocaster

Price: $623,500
Auctioned: 24 June, 2004 (Christies)
Blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan received this instrument from his wife, Lenny, in 1980 as a 26th birthday present.
Stevie Ray Vaughan first saw "Lenny" in an Austin, Texas, pawn shop. He loved it but didn't have the $350 that was on the price tag. His first wife, who he named the guitar after, did a "whip-round" and got some of Vaughan's friends to put in $50 each and bought the guitar for Vaughan's birthday.

Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash in 1990.
The guitar was put up for auction at the Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Festival on June 24, 2004 and it was sold to Guitar Center for $623,500.
All of Stevie Ray Vaughan's personal guitars are held by the Stevie Ray Vaughan Estate. This is the only known one to ever have been released.

 Lennon & Harrison 1964 Gibson SG

Price: $567,500
Auctioned: 17 December, 2004 (Christies)
This guitar was used by The Beatles between 1966 and 1969. George Harrison used it when recording and touring for the album Revolver. It was used by Harrison in the 'Paperback Writer' and 'Rain' clips in 1966 and by John Lennon during the White Album sessions in 1969. Subsequently owned by Pete Ham of Badfinger and on display for many years at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland Ohio.
A 1964 Gibson SG Standard guitar, Serial No. 227666, translucent cherry finish, double cutaway solid body, Schaller machine heads, 22 fret fingerboard with mother-of-pearl inlays, Gibson logo inlayed to head, dual humbucker pickups, four rotary controls, selector switch, Gibson/Maestro Varitone wrap around tail piece and whammy bar, together with original hardshell case and six original Kluson tuners.

  Jimi Hendrix "burned" 1965 Fender Stratocaster (Finsbury Astoria burning)

Price: $560,000
Auctioned: 4 September, 2008 (Fame Bureau)
The guitar which Jimi Hendrix set alight using lighter fluid on stage at London's Finsbury Astoria on March 31, 1967.
Hendrix became known for burning his guitars, though in fact, he only ever burned two guitars, and this 1965 Fender Stratocaster was the first guitar that Jimi sacrificed in 1967 in North London at the Finsbury Astoria. Tony Garland, a press officer for Hendrix, cleared up the remains of the guitar and stored it in his parents garage in Hove. And there it sat for nearly 40 years until 2007 when Garland's nephew unearthed it.

  Eric Clapton's "Brownie" Fender Stratocaster

Price: $497,500
Auctioned: 24 June, 1999 (Christies)
Purchased for $300 second-hand by Clapton, this guitar played many of those famous chords and riffs from his Cream days in 1967, all the way through to being back-up for Blackie, until Derek and the Dominoes. This was the guitar on which Layla was recorded (note that in this live concert video, Clapton is playing "Blackie").
Bought by Eric Clapton in 1967, when touring with Cream, as a "working guitar" – one that could take the knocks and the bangs of being played, hard, every night on tour. He bought it second hand for $300. Clapton believed that the more use that was shown in the neck of a guitar the better it played and he bought many of his guitars at pawn shops and second hand shops for that very reason.
In 1969, while playing at the Blind Faith concert in Hyde Park, he removed Brownies' neck and attached it to a Fender Custom Telecaster. He used Brownie on his debut album, Clapton, considered by many to be his best album ever, extensively during the early 70s, and when playing .
16 - Jimi Hendrix 1966 Red Fender Mustang

Price: $490,000
Auctioned: 27 April, 2007 (Juliens)
This guitar was used by Hendrix on his 1966 album Axis: Bold as Love
(If 6 Was 9) and his 1967 album Electric Ladyland (All Along The Watchtower).

 - George Harrison's 1963 Maton Mastersound MS500

Price: $485,000
Auctioned: 15 May, 2015 (Juliens)
George Harrison played this Australian-made guitar during the summer of 1963 while his Gretsch Country Gentleman was being repaired and he never actually owned it. The guitar was borrowed from Barratts Music Store in Manchester England and he liked it so much he kept it for July and August 1963 when Beatlemania was taking off in England.

George Harrison's "Let it be" Rosewood Fender Telecaster

Price: $434,750
Auctioned: September 13, 2003 (Juliens)
: Presented by Fender with this Telecaster in December, 1968, George Harrison played it in the Beatles' last ever live performance on top of the Apple building in London, in the 1970 Beatles movie 'Let It Be' and on various parts of the 'Abbey Road' album.

There was a lot of speculation among collectors, historians and Beatles fans as to where the guitar was and Bramlett said that Harrison had joked with him that he should sell it before someone killed him for it. In 1998 Bramlett put the guitar up for auction, but the $200,000 reserve price was not met. In 2003 it was again offered at auction, two years after George Harrisons' death. It was bought, on behalf of Olivia Harrison, by the actor Ed Begley, and so returned home.

Jimi Hendrix Fender 1964 Stratocaster

Price: $385,917 (£260,280)
Auctioned: 1 April, 2015 (Ted Owen & Co)
This 1964 Stratocaster was given by Jimi Hendrix to his brother Leon in 1968 in Seattle. According to Leon he told Jimi that he was going to start a band. Jimi asked him if he had a guitar. Leon said no and so Jimi gave him the 1964 Fender. Leon kept it for nearly 50 years and put it up for auction in 2015.
Paul McCartney's 1963 Hofner Violin Bass

Price: $204,800
Auctioned: 6 December, 2013 (Juliens)
The Hofner violin bass guitar is synonymous with Paul McCartney and he's been playing them continuously since purchasing his first in 1961 in Hamburg before The Beatles were famous. This particular guitar was built specifically for McCartney in 1964, and is one of three he has owned. The first was lost, the second (a 1963 model) he still plays, and this is the third.

Bob Dylan's 1982 Fender Telecaster

Price: $200,000at
Auctioned: 27 April, 2007 (Juliens)
: Used by Bob Dylan in many live performances and LPs from the late 1980s through to 1992. Sold as part of the auction benefiting Music Rising.

 

 

 

Jimi Hendrix 1970 Fender Stratocaster

Price: $187,500
Auctioned: 24 June, 2010 (Juliens)
Sunburst Fender Stratocaster purchased by Hendrix at Manny's Musical Instruments in New York on 14 July, 1970, when he was recording in his new Electric Lady Studios. Hendrix passed away two months later but was known to have been working in his studio for 10 days of those two months on his posthumous album 'The Cry of Love.' The guitar has been restrung for left-handed play and is the guitar used by Hendrix at the opening party for Electric Lady Studios

Brian Jones 1960 Harmony Stratotone

Price: $130,824 (£79,250)
Auctioned: 1 July 2009 (Christies)
: This was the first brand name guitar owned by the man who named, founded and initially led the Rolling Stones: Brian Jones. Purchased in 1962, Jones used this guitar almost exclusively until the autumn of 1963 when the Stones signed with Decca Records.

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