David Gilmour’s Black Strat is the world’s most expensive guitar again – selling for a staggering $14,550,000
David Gilmour’s most famous and iconic guitar once again owns the title of the most expensive guitar ever sold at auction, nearly than tripling the previous record by selling for $14,550,000 including fees.
READ MORE: Up close with Jim Irsay’s guitars: the greatest guitar collection on Earth
Today’s Jim Irsay Collection auction at Christie’s in New York was always likely to reset the market for rock star guitars at auction – we dubbed it the world’s greatest guitar collection in 2022, after all.
But with an estimated price of $2-4,000,000, even wild estimates would never have imagined that the guitar – which was bought at auction by the late Indianapolis Colts owner for $3,975,000 in 2019 – would command such an unprecedented price.
All images: Eleanor Jane
The sale makes the Black Strat not only the world’s most expensive guitar again, it more than doubles the previous record held by Kurt Cobain’s Martin D-18E which he used on Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged performance.
That guitar was sold for $6,010,000 in 2020, though interestingly another Kurt Cobain guitar that was also part of the sale and expected to fetch the highest price did relatively modestly by comparison.
Kurt’s Smells Like Teen Spirit video Mustang held the record for the most expensive electric guitar going into the sale, having sold for $4,550,000 in 2022. It sold in the end for ‘only’ $6,907,000.
That still wasn’t good enough for the silver medal on the night however, as another rock star guitar came out of nowhere to become the second most expensive guitar sold at auction.
Irsay purchased Jerry Garcia’s Tiger for $957,500 in 2002. Built by luthier Doug Irwin, it was the Grateful Dead star’s main guitar from 1979 onwards and in 1995 was the last guitar he ever played in public
Interest in the Grateful Dead has exploded over the last few years, and so perhaps it’s no surprise that Jerry Garcia’s legendary Tiger guitar would comfortably beat its $1-2m estimate.
For it to fetch an astounding $14,560,000 however? That certainly wasn’t on the script for the evening.
The sale also saw Eric Clapton’s “Fool” SG sell for a little over $3m, while a treasure trove of Beatles gear also fetched big sums – most notably George Harrison’s Paperback Writer SG which sold for $2,271,000.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
