The 1964 sonic blue Strat was demolished at the end of the Who's December 1st, 1967 sh
ow at Commack, New York's Long Island Arena. The guitar is estimated
to sell for around $20,000 but other smashed Townsend guitars have sold nearly four times as much at auction.
According to AntiquesTradeGazette.com, "The lot includes a hand-written statement detailing the smashing of the guitar and the instrument’s history since the pieces were caught by the owner, who has held on to it for a little over 50 years. . . The instrument is accompanied by items including the two-page hand-written letter from the original owner and a ticket stub from the show."
The images of the Who's early career will always be dominated with Pete Townshend's iconic guitar smashing -- an instant gimmick that never failed to thrill: “Next thing I knew, I’m breaking guitars at gigs, y’know, saying, ‘I am destroying the instrument of my bourgeois child longing,’ y’know, which is I used to stand outside shops and 
people used to come and go ‘What a great axe!!!’ And I’d say, ‘It’s not an act, it’s . . .’ And I’d even have the guys in the band going ‘What a load of pompous pretentious drivel’ -- and I’d go, ‘No, it’s auto-destructive art.”
Watch the astounding Pete Townshend’s Guitar Collection
The Who’s Pete Townshend has played – and smashed – many different guitar brands over the years. But he had a ripe period when he played – and again smashed – Gibsons. From the mid ’60s to mid-‘70s – for many The Who’s glory days –
Townshend’s favorite J-200 “exploded.” He was working on his solo album Iron Man in 1990 when disaster struck. Townshend told Guitarist magazine: “I don’t have romantic misconceptions about musical instruments – they’re just wood, probably far more useful as pulp than anything else. There are actually a couple of instruments that I would miss, and in fact a weird thing happened to the J-200 that I’ve had for a long time. Half-way through Iron Man it got wet in the studio and exploded. It was almost like the guitar getting back at me – the only guitar I cared about dying on me!”
