Wednesday, November 20th at Nashville’s Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum, setting a world record for the highest sale of a George Harrison guitar. Harrison’s early Beatles-era Futurama guitar, which sold for twice its estimate at $1.27 million, was one of two guitars he used most frequently with the band, playing it in over 324 Beatles performances and using it on their first official recordings for Polydor.
The oddball electric – which originally went up for auction back in 2019 – was also used on the Fab Four's first official Polydor recordings, having featured heavily during their early Cavern Club gigs. (Guitar World).
George Harrison’s historic Futurama – which he played extensively across more than 324 Beatles performances – is going up for auction for a second time.
Julien’s Auctions announced the sale during an official unveiling event in Liverpool, during which it called the oddball electric guitar “one of the holy grails of historic Beatles guitars”.
Indeed, the Resonet Futurama’s pedigree and significance in the annals of Beatles history is well-known. Harrison first bought the sunburst six-string from Hessy’s Music Centre in Liverpool (the same retailer where John Lennon bought his first Vox amp) in the late 1950s.
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Not only that, it had also been used by Harrison alongside Paul McCartney and co. for the Fab Four’s Hamburg tour at the start of the ’60s. During that first visit to Hamburg, the band played 106 nights – and Harrison used the Futurama for all of them.
The Futurama would also return to Hamburg for the band’s final visit to the city in 1962, and featured across a number of high-profile homecoming shows in Liverpool during the start of the decade.
