“Lot after lot we felt like we were making history”: World record for most expensive guitar shattered three times in one night as Jim Irsay auction sees David Gilmour's Black Strat fetch $14.5m

It was the night when the records fell – 23 of them in total – when all pre-auction estimates were smashed, and quite possibly the market for vintage guitars with player kudos will never be the same again.

The Jim Irsay Collection: Hall of Fame auction, hosted at Christie’s in New York, was truly a historic event, with all 44 lots sold and a cool $84,091,350 changing hands – a record for a guitar auction. By close of play, those figures saw Christie’s exceed its sales estimate by 373 per cent.

After 21 minutes of intense bidding – received like a Federer vs Nadal rally at the Arthur Ashe Stadium – the world had a new most-expensive guitar, and to the surprise of no one in the weeks leading up to the auction, it was David Gilmour’s Black Strat, the heavily modified Stratocaster that “he grew tired of” and sold, but not before tracking Comfortably Numb and Shine on You Crazy Diamond with it, anointing it as the ne plus ultra of Pink Floyd guitars.

The hammer came down at $14,550,000. For that kind of money, here’s hoping they threw in a guitar strap and a fresh set of D’Addario NYXL 10s.

But it did not take long for jaws – and records – to fall once more. Inside the hall, there were some Amex Platinum credit cards going uncomfortably numb as the bidding heated up for Jerry Garcia’s custom-built Tiger, the electric guitar that was six years in the making, comprised of the finest tone woods known to humanity, and the Grateful Dead icon’s most-celebrated guitar.

It set another record for a Garcia-owned guitar – and needless to say, for a guitar built by Doug Irwin, selling for $11,560,000.

Of course this was the sort of night that someone would spend the best part of seven million bucks on a left-handed student-model Fender guitar that is the definition of player grade.

Yes, Kurt Cobain’s 1969 Competition Mustang from the Smells Like Teenage Spirit video fetched a record (for a Cobain guitar) $6,907,000. It was previously the world's most expensive guitar, and so, on the night, its record was broken three times.

Up close with Gilmour’s Black Strat, Clapton’s ‘The Fool’ SG and Cobain’s ‘Teen Spirit’ Mustang - YouTube

Watch On

Julien Pradels, president, Christie’s Americas, said the night was a testimony to Irsay’s curation of the most important guitars, musical instruments and pop-cultural ephemera in history.

This wasn’t just guitars breaking records; we had Ringo Starr’s Beatles logo Ed Sullivan Show Ludwig drum head going for $2,881,000; Bob Dylan’s handwritten lyrics sheet for The Times They Are a Changin’ sold for $2,515,000… Someone paid over one-and-a-half million dollars for a saddle!

“Lot after lot we felt like we were making history,” said Pradels. “The Irsay sale did justice to the brilliance of the collector, and of the monumental pieces he brought together, iconic objects that tell the story of our culture and our times. The Irsay Collection is singular, but Christie’s will have other amazing sales in this space moving forward.”

There was the record sale for any guitar owned by a woman, as Janis Joplin’s Gibson J-45 acoustic guitar went for $381,000.

There was a new record set for a Gibson guitar, as Eric Clapton’s The Fool SG sold for $3,003,000, while his 1939 Martin 000-42 – i.e. the one from MTV Unplugged, “See if you can spot this one…” and all that – changed hands for a whopping $4,101,000.

Eric Clapton - Layla [Unplugged...Over 30 Years Later] (Official Live Video) - YouTube

Watch On

It was an expensive night to be a Beatlemaniac with deep pockets. Brace for more records: George Harrison’s Gibson SG Standard mopped up $2,271,000; John Lennon’s Broadwood piano (okay, that’s not a guitar) sold for $3,247,000.

Even when the lots were not making world records they were destroying pre-auction estimates.

Many exceptional guitars were sold for eye-watering sums, such as John Lennon’s 1964 Rickenbacker Model 1996 and his 1963 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins, with both going for $1,270,000.

Image 1 of 3

Prince’s Custom ‘Yellow Cloud’ seems a bargain at $635,000, and that seems to be the going rate for iconic “shape” electrics as The Edge’s korina Explorer, a backup on U2’s Joshua Tree tour, went for the same price.

Harrison’s Bisgby-equipped Maton Mastersound, which older readers might remember seeing onstage when the Beatles played the UK in the summer of ’63, sold for $279,400 – and please let it have been Josh Homme who bought it, because that would look just the thing on a QOTSA stage.

The 1966 prototype Vox Kensington semi-hollow guitar, once owned by the Beatles, would look crazy on any stage with its tulip-inspired body shape and arcane electronics – and at $609,600 it would legit be crazy to take it on any stage, or out of the house for that matter.

Would this even be a history-making auction without a Johnny Cash guitar? Of course not. The Man in Black’s 1956 Martin D-21 fetched $215,900, and with its battered top and vibe off the charts, that, legitimately, feels like a good buy.

And so it went on, Paul McCartney’s Yamaha BB-1200 (an underrated bass guitar) sold for $228,600. Oh, and another David Gilmour guitar breaking the multi-million-dollar mark with his Wish You Were Here 1969 Martin D-35 going for $2,393,000. A lot of money, but you can be damn sure that it’ll make your Em7 and open G chords sound godly.

Last, but by no means least, one of the coolest guitar-related items to be auctioned in opening salvo from the Jim Irsay’s über collection is taken from the Grateful Dead’s ‘Wall of Sound,’ the 600-watt/300-watts-per-channel McIntosh MC2300 power amp nicknamed Budman. It sold for $381,000. That’d add a little punch to your backline.

Image 1 of 2

So there you have it. As a wise man who is known to collect the odd guitar (to play them too), always says, “A guitar is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.”

But that's not all from Jim Irsay Collection. There will be a further three epic auctions, with the Icons of Popular Culture going live today, (March 13), The Jim Irsay Collection: Icons of Music going live on March 14, while the Jim Irsay Collection: Online, which is live from March 3 to 17.

See Christie's for more details.

The Jim Irsay Collection: what sold and for how much?

• David Gilmour Black Strat – $14,550,000
• Jerry Garcia Tiger – $11,560,000
• Kurt Cobain Smells Like Teen Spirit Mustang – $6,907,000
• Eric Clapton’s MTV Unplugged Martin 000-42 – $4,101,000
• Eric Clapton’s Gibson SG “The Fool” – $3,003,000
• David Gilmour’s Wish You Were Here Martin D-35 – $2,393,000
• George Harrison’s 1964 Gibson SG Standard – $2,271,000
• John Lennon’s 1964 Rickenbacker Model 1996 – $1,270,000
• John Lennon’s 1963 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins – $1,270,000
• The Beatles' 1966 Vox Kensington prototype – $609,600
• Prince’s Custom ‘Yellow Cloud’ Electric – $635,000
• The Edge's 1976 korina Gibson Explorer – $635,000
• George Harrison's Maton 'Mastersound' – $279,400
• Johnny Cash's 1956 Martin D-21 – $215,900
• Gibson circa 1954 Les Paul Custom prototype – $152,400