Bass used on The Specials Ghost Town expected to fetch £20k at auction
The bass guitar played by Horace Panter on the Specials’ 1981 hit Ghost Town is headed to the auction block, and is expected to fetch up to £20,000.
As auctioneer Gardiner Houlgate explains in a press release, Panter paid £200 for the 1971 blue Fender Precision bass in 1981, and admits he’s “not overly attached” to the instrument, and would rather it go to someone who will play it.
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“It would be nice if it went to someone who’ll play it rather than shut it in a vault. It plays really well,” he says.
The Special’s Ghost Town spent three weeks at Number One in the UK, and 11 weeks in the top 40, and “summed up the depressed mood of Britain at the time”.
After the Specials disbanded in 1981, Horace Pantr used the bass with new wave supergroup General Public, which also featured former members of The Beat, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, and the Clash.
Panter sold the bass in 1988, before re-acquiring it in 2010 to use when the Specials reunited.
“This is a bass guitar that’s going to stir up quite a lot of interest among fans and collectors,” says Gardiner Houlgate auctioneer Luke Hobbs. “Ghost Town is such an evocative track reflecting the social and political unrest of Britain at that time – and Horace Panter’s bass is a big part of it.”
Horace Panter’s 1971 Fender Precision bass will be available for public viewing on Friday 6 March and Monday 9 March from 09:00 – 17:30, and on 10 March, the day of the sale itself.
The auction will take place at Gardiner Houlgate, 9 Leafield Way, Corsham, Wiltshire, SN13 9SW.
Learn more at Gardiner Houlgate.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
