“It was the guitar he played on the band’s earliest demos and at their early club gigs”: The Harmony Stratotone that Brian Jones used to teach Keith Richards and played on the Rolling Stones debut single fetches $150,000 at auction

The late Brian Jones’ early ’60s Harmony Stratotone has sold at auction for $150,000.

This was the guitar that Jones used on all of the Rolling Stones early recordings, including their debut single – and it was used to teach Keith Richards how to play.

With all that in mind it is maybe understandable that a budget electric guitar that you could pick up on the vintage market for a grand-and-a-half should go for megabucks.

But considering that Heritage Auctions had estimated the value of Jones’ singlecut to be as much as $400,000, perhaps this is a disappointing result for the auction house.

Maybe these Stones auctions are being over-priced. Last year, Keith Richards’ ‘Some Girls’ Telecaster went up for auction, and it too was expected to sell for $400,000. It fetched just $106,325.

Charles Epting, director of consignments at Heritage, was not wrong when he described it as “one of the most important instruments in rock and roll history”, its skronky tone all over the Stones cover of Chuck Berry’s Come On.

“It was the electric guitar he played on the band’s earliest demos and at their early club gigs, and the very one heard on the band’s debut single, a cover of Chuck Berry’s Come On, which introduced The Stones to the world,” says Epting.

“Perhaps even more importantly, this was the guitar Jones used to teach a young Keith Richards, helping shape the partnership that would define the band’s sound for decades.”

And all that aside, it is undeniably one cool guitar. You have the wooden bridge and this utilitarian trapeze-style tailpiece. You have the cupcake volume and tone knobs.

Also, it is a rare dual-pickup version, and what pickups they are too, those ‘Hershey bar’ single-coils giving you a variant on the fat heat of a P-90.

The neck is reinforced with steel and there’s that ‘physics lab’ graphic on the headstock – you would also find that on the pickguard of some models, and perhaps ties in with the model’s full name, Stratotone H46 ‘Mars’.

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Jones was often quoted as saying this was his first “proper” guitar but it’s still reassuringly lo-fi, with its bolt-on hollowbody construction and ebonized maple fingerboard. Stratotones have been played by the likes of Mike Campbell, Dan Auerbach and James Bay, all mavens of their pawnshop appeal, Junior Watson, too.

They are quite possibly one of the few affordable options you can find in the vintage guitar market. Though clearly not if they had been owned by a Rolling Stone.

Head over to Heritage Auctions for more info on the guitar.