Rock collector’s only want one thing.
Guitars.
Well two.
Guitars and stars.
Guitars owned and played by rock stars are the pre-emminent musical collectible.
Just look at the prices: record after record.
This is a £1 million guitar because Jeff Beck owned and played it. Image courtesy of Christie's.
Just last month a sale of Jeff Beck’s collection realised nearly £9 million with two guitars going over the £1 million mark.
And, Jeff Beck’s a great musician with a huge legacy as a virtuoso guitarist, but is he a household name?
These music-making machines owe their value to their players. They’re individually tied to sounds we love, or moments of madness - one of Kurt Cobain’s smashed instruments made around $0.5 million in 2023 and no-one’s playing that again.
But what makes and marques are at the top?
Let’s have a look, using the top 10 most valuable guitars as our guide.
Fender:
If you think of an electric guitar you probably picture a Fender Stratocaster.
Buddy Holly strummed one on telly, and ignited a covetous glow in the heart of George Harrison, who had to have one like it.
He was no great soloist, but Buddy Holly's strat launched a revolution.
They are associated with a huge number of guitar heroes: Jeff Beck, Clapton, Hendrix… the list goes on and on.
If you’ve ever played an electric guitar you’ve probably played a Strat or a Strat copy. George Harrison couldn't afford the real thing, so had to make do with a copy.
The instrument was mass produced by Leo Fender’s guitar company from 1954.
The big innovation was that it didn’t try to ape a standard acoustic guitar.
This was the Space Age. And this was the first Space Age guitar.
It’s not just that though. It’s a great instrument. There are plenty of great looking guitars that haven’t lasted.
It has a particular sound - dry or “quacky” to some players - usually produced by three, single-coil pickups blended together through a five-position sliding selecter switch.
The distinctive Fender headstock at the top of the neck puts all the tuning pegs on one side.
They come in all colours, including the famous candy apple red - and have been painted beyond them, most famously by George Harrison.
The three most valuable Strats are:
The player of an era at the show of an era. What more could you want?
Jimi Hendrix’s 1968 model played at Woodstock the following year. It’s now in the Seattle Museum of Pop Culture to which Microsoft boss Paul Allen donated it before his death. He paid $2 million for it.
The Reach Out to Asia guitar made $2,700,000 for a Boxing Day 2004 Tsunami relief fund. It’s unusual on this list because it’s not a single players instrument, but instead owes its value to a good cause and signatures from: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Brian May, Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, Jeff Beck, Pete Townsend, Mark Knopfler, Ray Davies, Liam Gallagher, Ronnie Wood, Tony Iommi, Angus and Malcolm Young, Paul McCartney, Sting, Ritchie Blackmore, Def Leppard and Bryan Adams.
Dave Gilmour’s Black Strat (it has that name as a sort of official title) set a guitar world record when it made just under $4 million at auction in 2019. The sound it made was most famously heard on the song Comfortably Numb and throughout several Pink Floyd albums.
Fender Mustangs
Mustangs are on this list thanks to one man, Kurt Cobain.
Mustangs were designed for learners, their relative cheapness made them perfect for punks and outsiders who took to them in the 1990s. Image by Vaiodagger at Wikimedia.
The Mustang was made from 1964 onwards but really came into its own - alongside the Jazzmaster and Jaguar - when grunge bands took to it in a big way. It was cheap and hardworking with a big sound.
The two Mustangs on our list are:
The Skystang I played by Kurt Kobain at his final show, and named for its sky blue colour. It sold for $1,587,500 (£1,271,730) in November 2023.
A Mustang played in the Smells Like Teen Spirit video that turned Nirvana from cult faves into global superstars. It realised $4.5 million (£3.7 million) in 2022.
Gibsons:
Gibson are a much older company than Fender, and date back to the very early 1900s when they were making mandolins.
They’ve been through some ownership changes in recent years, and been criticised for diversifying their enormously successful branding into electronics gear of all sorts.
But over it all stands one guitar, the Gibson Les Paul, named for the guitarist who pioneered multi-track recording among other things.
They’ve had other successful models like the ES 335, and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones loved their eccentrically shaped Flying V and Explorer styles. Their acoustics are world-class too.
Gibson own Epiphone, which made some of the Beatles most famous guitars, and their Casinos will surely make lists like this if they’re ever sold.
A guitar with its own Wikipedia page, this is Greeny still working with Metallica. Image by Raph_PH.
On our list are:
Peter Green’s 1958 Gibson Les Paul Standard is called “Greeny” and it cost him 60 guineas. Green was the driving force of the early Fleetwood Mac. He sold it on to fellow player Gary Moore, and via a couple of other deals it’s still in action with Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, who paid under its $2 million top price.
John Lennon’s J-160E acoustic electric has a great story. John and George Harrison both bought one of these giant acoustics with electrical circuits to allow them to be amplified. They feature heavily in the early output of The Beatles, but John’s did a walkie after a London gig in 1963. It turned up in the hands of a US musician, who had bought it legitimately in 1969 from a friend. He saw an article on Harrison’s instrument and noticing its similarity to his went to check the serial numbers. Some research later, the instrument made $2 million at auction.
Kramer
Yes, it looks like a strat, like most post-strat guitars, but it's very much a Kramer and a legend in the Heavy Metal world. Image courtesy Sotheby's.
Fender and Gibson are familiar brand names. You don’t need to be a musician to know them. Kramer maybe isn’t. But a Kramer - a strat homage of a sort - made just short of $4 million at auction in 2023.
Kramer Guitars were founded by Gary Kramer and Travis Bean, switching from the latter’s name to the former when Travis gave up on the business.
Kramer souped up some of Bean’s designs, got some partners on board and ended up producing the favourite guitars of a generation of heavy rock and metal players.
They are closely linked with Eddie Van Halen, and his instrument from the Hot For Teacher music video made $3,932,000 at auction in 2023.
This particular Kramer was made by Paul Unkert and played by the metal guitarist from 1983 to 1984.
Framus
Hidden in an attic for years, this Framus shaped the Beatles sound for a while. Image courtesy Julien's Auctions.
Framus no longer exist.
They were founded in German/Czech territory after the end of World War II in the town of Luby, which was then a famous violin making centre. Some Germans were expelled from Czech territory after the war, and Fred Wilfer wanted to save the instrument-making heritage they carried, building a factory in Germany to found his business.
But, not many Framus models trip off the tongue of the casual music fan, and the list of famous players has two names only that stick out like sore thumbs.
Paul McCartney had a budget Zenith model guitar as a teenager (which he reportedly still owns).
And John Lennon played a Framus Hootenanny that makes it onto our list.
It’s extremely recognisable, thanks largely to its prominent role in Help!. Lennon strums it with typical vigour through You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away. It’s sound is all over that album And Rubber Soul.
The 12-string made $2.9 million in 2024.
Martin
Martin guitars are so well established they're a tourist attraction.
Although they’re often less obviously branded, acoustic guitar makers have their followers.
And Martin is probably the preeminent brand among players.
They’ve been in business since 1833 and their HQ is a listened historic site with a museum in the same town.
The acoustic guitar as we know it today is largely the creation of the Martin family, who still own and run the company.
But they’ve never made large numbers of instruments so their guitars were often only available after a wait.
The D range from Martin are Dreadnoughts, designed to be extra big and extra loud.
It was one of these - a Martin D-18 E - that was played by Kurt Cobain for the legendary Nirvana MTV Unplugged in 1993. Ironically, although Martin are beloved of rootsy players who like their natural sound, Cobain's guitar had a pickup and was plugged in for the show - it sounded like an electric.
Big pickups mean this acoustic sounded like no other on Nirvana's Unplugged.
The closing wails of Where Did You Sleep Last Night were powerful, and when the singer took his own life just a few months later the appearance seemed to have even more meaning.
When it auctioned for just over $6 million in Jun 2020 the Unplugged guitar it became - and still is - the most expensive guitar ever sold.
Music memorabilia today
We add new items all the time and we can’t list everything we hold.
