“It’s weirdly heavy, which you wouldn’t necessarily expect from its diminutive size”: Up close and personal with Prince’s $635,000 Yellow Cloud guitar

“I love it, it’s very uniquely Prince – though it’s weirdly heavy, which you wouldn’t necessarily expect from its diminutive size,” says Christie’s Amelia Walker of the fluoro yellow, baroque-looking Cloud guitar, built around 1993, that originally belonged to the pop-funk genius himself and just sold for $635,000 as part of the Jim Irsay Collection.

“Prince’s Cloud guitars have come up at auction previously and have quite a range of value points depending on what era they are and what they were used for,” she explains, “and whether they were one of the first four, built by Dave Rusan from 1985 to ’93, one of those made by Andy Beech from ’93 onwards, or later Schecters.

“This one was a bit of a mystery because it was accompanied by a letter from [guitar tech] Zeke Clark about its usage, stating that it was Prince’s main guitar and used in most of his early videos from around 1988 to ’94.

“However, Prince’s first and original Cloud was donated to the Smithsonian in July 1993 and the other three Dave Rusan Clouds [2, 3 and 4], one of which was resprayed yellow at various points, have all been sold at auction between 2016 and 2020. That meant that this guitar was one of those made by Andy Beech, who was only commissioned by Prince to make Clouds from 1993 [as opposed to 1988].

“The serial number – which we now think was probably put on a bit later – didn’t appear in the numbers listed in a Paisley Park fax dated January 1995 of all known Cloud serial numbers at the time. What we’ve since discovered is that we think this was the first one made by Andy Beech, effectively his prototype, which was delivered to Prince prior to his ‘Act II’ tour in the summer of 1993.”

Amelia adds that stage-played Yellow Cloud guitars are rare, even within the exalted niche of Prince’s collection: “Since we know that the one in the Smithsonian [Cloud 1] was donated in July 1993, and Cloud 3 was given away in March ’93, we believe that Prince used the first Andy Beech Cloud – this guitar – for his 1993 tour of Europe, and close examination of the position of the controls, which vary quite a bit among the Clouds, as well as the profile of the headstock scroll, appear to confirm this.

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“Following the final show of the Act II tour at Wembley, Prince ended up playing an after-show at Bagley’s [former rave venue in London, in September ’93] and then tossed it [onto the stage floor] and the neck got broken – and that’s the last time he played it.

“Zeke Clark stated that he repaired the neck after a break and that he fitted the guitar with a Floyd Rose, which meant he had to move the input jack – and while you can see the ‘scar’ from this change to the scroll below the controls, the complete refin makes it tricky to see any neck repair with the naked eye.

“We were so happy to discover he’d played it live. Obviously, it got broken and mended, and it’s been completely refinished. But it’s been done so well that you can’t see any kind of evidence of the repair, even when you blacklight it. It’s a really cool thing.”

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• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.