"The guitar has been authenticated by Hofner and Paul is incredibly grateful to all those involved."
The search was launched in 2018 but was reinvigorated in 2023 when it gained extra publicity.
A message posted on The Lost Bass Project's website revealed the instrument will need some repairs but is in mostly good condition.
The statement explained: "Finally, after so much searching and investigation, we have Paul’s Lost Bass back with him. Can you imagine how excited Paul was when he heard the news!
"The bass is complete and still with its original case. It will need some repairs to make it playable again, but a team of professionals can easily carry these out."
A global search has been under way to find Sir Paul McCartney's missing bass guitar which he bought for £30 and could reportedly now be worth more than £10m.
How the violin bass became Macca's number one through the Beatles years and beyond - All the Beatles have been put under the microscope again and again over the years. This scrutiny has included, on countless occasions, McCartney and his Höfner basses. From this has come numerous legends and myths, many of which are now copied and stated as facts simply because they have been around for years. (Excerpt from Guitarworld)
The Hofner 500/1 electric bass was purchased by Beatles star McCartney from a shop in Hamburg in 1961 and it was reportedly his "favourite".
McCartney then put it to one side for several years, but in early 1969 he picked it up again while the band were in London recording the Get Back/Let It Be sessions.
The instrument could also be seen in Get Back, the Peter Jackson documentary which was released in 2021.
It was around the time of the sessions in January 1969 that the guitar went missing, a year before the band split up.
There are various rumours about what happened to it, including that a thief took the bass from a closet at Abbey Road, or that it went missing from the basement of the Beatles' Savile Row offices.
"I have had a Hofner ever since I started. I've got three models but the ancient one is still my favourite. It has seen so much work that some of it is held with sellotape!"
There are various rumours about what happened to it, including that a thief took the bass from a closet at Abbey Road, or that it went missing from the basement of the Beatles' Savile Row offices.
He owns several others, but they are in his private collection.
The four basses are: the original he purchased in Hamburg in 1961 – the ‘61 bass’; the bass he acquired in the autumn of 1963 – the ‘63 bass’; the ‘Jubilee’ bass given to him by Höfner to play at the Queen’s Jubilee concert in 2012; and the 1967 bass he acquired and used for a private concert in 2016 – the ‘67 bass’.
In April 1961, the Beatles returned to Hamburg for a second time to take up a residency at the Top Ten Club from April 1 to July 1. The line-up was John Lennon and George Harrison on guitar, McCartney on piano and guitar, Stuart Sutcliffe on bass, and Pete Best on drums.
soon announced his intention of leaving, as he wanted to study at the University of Fine Art in Hamburg. The band soon ‘elected’ McCartney to take over the bass. The problem now, for McCartney, was to get his own bass. McCartney took himself off to a large and prestigious music shop, spread over five floors, called Steinway Musikhaus, located at Collonaden 29 in Hamburg.
McCartney must have gone up to the fourth floor, as this was where guitars and drums were located. In his own words, he says that he saw a bass guitar with a symmetrical body shape, and thought he might play it upside down and not look stupid. It was also at a price point he could afford.
In an interview for Guitarist magazine in September 1993, he is quoted as saying: “I got my violin bass at the Steinway shop in the town center. I remember going along and there was this bass that was quite cheap...”
The idea that McCartney purchased a right-handed bass and converted it to a left-handed bass is false. This simply isn’t possible without putting a whole new top onto the bass.
Another theory is that Steinway had a left-handed bass in stock and so sold him that one. There are no records or evidence that Höfner had ever built a 500/1 bass left-handed before the one for McCartney was ordered.
McCartney would now use this bass until October 1963, playing hundreds of gigs and making numerous recordings. The Beatles’ first two albums were recorded with this bass, as were all of their singles up to and including She Loves You. It certainly worked hard!
By the summer of 1963, it was starting to need some repairs, which is not surprising when you consider just how much it had been used, thrown into vans, and generally moved around. The neck pickup frame had broken, and was held together with black tape, a fix made, perhaps, by roadie Mal Evans to keep the bass playing. At some point in the summer of 1963, a replacement bass was ordered and delivered to McCartney in October. The ’61 would then become his backup bass.
th The problem here is that nobody has ever clearly established where the bass was stored after the sessions, let alone what actually happened to it. Numerous theories and false sightings have occurred over the years, but no-one has ever found the lost bass. I’ll give just two possibilities as to what happened, but that is all they can be – possibilities.
For one, the bass may have been stored at Abbey Road Studios in the lockup that the Beatles used, and stolen. Or it was stored in the basement at Apple HQ following the Let It Be sessions, and subsequently stolen from there. To read the full article on Guitarworld, click Here
