World’s Most Valuable Guitars

Music has always been incredibly powerful and influential, and now everyone has an audio player on their mobile devices, music is more accessible than ever before. The instrument that has had a profound effect on the music of the last half century must be the electric guitar and the ones that have played a significant role in that history have started to raise vast sums of money at auction. Here are some of the most expensive guitars ever sold at auction:

Eric Clapton

This musician deserves a category all on his own. Eric Clapton’s guitars are among the most valuable in the world. For example, his Fender Stratocaster named ‘Blackie’ was built from the parts of three vintage Stratocasters and is valued at over £720,000. He also owns several other rare and extremely valuable guitars, including a 1964 Gibson ES-335 TDC, reportedly worth £600,000.

Reach Out To Asia Stratocaster

Following an idea conceived by rocker Bryan Adams, it allegedly cost almost $25,000 for Fender to produce this guitar. Adams was raising funds for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and got the guitar signed by 19 top music artists, including Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton. It became the most expensive guitar ever sold at auction, raising a whopping $2.7 million. For Guitar Shops Gloucester, visit https://www.guitarsmiths.co.uk/

The 1968 Fender Stratocaster played by Jimi Hendrix

To look at, this guitar isn’t spectacular. It is a normal, right-handed Stratocaster in a white finish. However, this is the instrument that Hendrix played at Woodstock, performing the iconic version of the Star-Spangled Banner. It was purchased in 1998 by the co-founder of Microsoft for a cool £2 million.

Keith Richards’ 1959 Les Paul

This guitar has been dubbed the ‘holy grail’ of electric guitars. It was played by Richards during the first performance of the Rolling Stones on the Ed Sullivan Show and sold at auction for $1 million back in 2003.

Bob Marley’s Washburn 22-Series Hawk

The legend that was Bob Marley owned a fairly frugal 7 guitars during his career. The Washburn was a 22 fret, double cutaway which was later gifted to this guitar tech friend. Its whereabouts are a closely guarded secret to this day. It is thought that it could be in the hands of the Jamaican government after they declared it a national treasure. Rumours suggest that they might have bought it for close to $2 million.

Bob Dylan’s 1964 Fender Stratocaster

Bob Dylan’s introduction into playing the electric guitar wasn’t always met with cheers and applause. When he played this Strat, the folk purists were not amused and replied with a chorus of booing at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Years later, it sold for a whopping £750,000.