Georg Harrison's First Guitar Up For Auction

[matonanjin]

From ABC News:

"George Harrison's first electric guitar is up for auction.

Julien's Auctions says Harrison played the Hoffner Club 40 when The Beatles played around Liverpool, England, as The Quarrymen. Harrison traded his acoustic guitar for the electric model with Ray Ennis, who was a member of The Swinging Blue Jeans.

Harrison donated it to a band competition in 1965 and it was won by a member of a German band who died in 2017. His widow is putting it up for auction.

The auction house estimates the guitar will sell for between $200,000 and $300,000.

A 1965 Fender Telecaster owned by The Band's Robbie Robertson played by Harrison, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan is also on the block and estimated to sell between $400,000 and $600,000.

The auction will take place at New York's Hard Rock Cafe on May 19."

[Fretless]

9 hours ago, matonanjin said:

The auction house estimates the guitar will sell for between $200,000 and $300,000.

That (to me) is an unbelievable price, and to think, Goerge gave it away (donated it). This one sold for a much more realistic price. By all means bump it up by a few hundred as it belonged to George a long time ago.

Is the widow greedy or are guitarists really that rich and gullible?

[guitarben]

4 hours ago, Fretless said:

That (to me) is an unbelievable price, and to think, Goerge gave it away (donated it). This one sold for a much more realistic price. By all means bump it up by a few hundred as it belonged to George a long time ago.

Is the widow greedy or are guitarists really that rich and gullible?

 

It does seem very high, especially considering it only has historical value as it doesn't seem to be in very good condition. On the other hand, it is signed by George Harrison, John Lennon and 2 other people I can't make out.

 

[matonanjin]

1 hour ago, guitarben said:

It does seem very high, especially considering it only has historical value as it doesn't seem to be in very good condition. On the other hand, it is signed by George Harrison, John Lennon and 2 other people I can't make out.

Don't you think that is what is justifying the high opening bid to collectors?  From a strictly guitar player point of view I would rather have the Tele played by Robertson and Clapton.  But then, of course, I am a huge fan of both of those.

[guitarben]

10 hours ago, matonanjin said:

Don't you think that is what is justifying the high opening bid to collectors?  From a strictly guitar player point of view I would rather have the Tele played by Robertson and Clapton.  But then, of course, I am a huge fan of both of those.

The Tele does seem more reasonnably priced, but I'm also a huge fan, especially of Bob Dylan. I actually named my son Dylan after him.

I'm also a huge Beatles fan, and the autographs of the 2 Beatles that passed away surely add value. However, appart from being George Harrison's first electric guitar it was not part of anything major in history; I have never seen a picture of George with it (even from the Quarrymen era) and in interviews he always talks about his actual first guitar: an acoustic that his mom bought for him. Regardless of the condition, it's great that it survived. If someone's willing to pay, then it's not too expensive.

It's hard to tell with collectibles, you never know how crazy the interest will be. Kirk Hammett paid $2M for Peter Green's 1959 Les Paul and he plays it at every concert. I looked into it and found a very interesting list of The 60 most valuable guitars ever sold at auction. I wanted to list a few, but you should really check it out as they are all really interesting and it turned out to be a great read; I couldn't even pick just a handful to list here. Out of 60, only the top 27 fetched more than $300,000. The "cheaper" ones include John Lennon's first guitar, a few of Clapton's, Jimi's Strat from Monterey, the first Les Paul (owned by Les Paul), a few of Jerry Garcia's most famous guitars, Elvis' guitar between 1954 and 1956 (the Sun sessions), Hank Williams' main guitar and much more.

Wow sorry for the long response, but thanks for making me wonder how much it might actually be worth, that list was really interesting.

 

Edited May 5, 2018 by guitarben