Not all guitar auctions yield record sales. Blockbuster auctions like the Jim Irsay Collection that broke all the records – 23 of them, including for most expensive guitar sold as David Gilmour’s Black Strat fetched $14.5m – are exceptional.
They speak to the cultural significance of the instruments, and Irsay’s Collection was like no other. This was an auction that saw someone pay $6,907,000 for Kurt Cobain’s Smells Like Teen Spirit Mustang, $11,560,000 for Jerry Garcia’s “Tiger” guitar and both would have been world records.
He sold 10 guitars that fetched six figures, most notably the Grainger Burst 1959 Les Paul Standard for $300,000 and another ‘Burst that went for $350,000.
But many didn’t sell, such as the exquisite 2005 double-neck PRS Dragon, valued at $37,500. And what about Schon’s 1960 Gibson Les Paul Custom in so-called wine red, an all-mahogany single-cut finished in Cherry for the export market? Davidson says only six of these were ever made. “Very few people know that these exist and this one may be the only surviving version that is fully intact,” he says.
It sold for $112,500 in 2021 and Davidson says this was indicative of a “brutal” auction in which Schon took a bath on a number of guitars.
“Neal sold it in the Heritage Auction in the pandemic,” says Davidson. “It turned out to be the worst time to do an auction because his guitars really undersold.”
Davidson says he wasn’t alone in thinking that it was going to be tough. Blues guitar superstar and collector extraordinaire Joe Bonamassa was of the opinion that Schon should have held fire.
“I remember having a conversation with Bonamassa afterwards and he felt Neal should have waited,” says Davidson. “I was amazed he didn’t just get a storage place and put it off for a year or two, but nobody knew where the market was going to go at the time.”
But then if the market was always so predictable then investing and collecting would be easy. What is it that Bonamassa is always saying about market value: an electric guitar (or anything) is only worth how much someone is willing to pay for it.
If watching Schon’s guitars go under the auction brought Davidson and his fellow vintage traders out in a cold sweat, the fortunes of the market would swing around again.
“It was a brutal auction to watch because we were worrying that it would hurt the vintage guitar market,” says Davidson. “But it had no effect either way. Things just started popping like crazy a couple of months after the auction happened.”
It was too late for Schon. He had put a lot of work into the auction, too, presenting these guitars on camera, telling the stories behind them – and stories, as we know, can make them more valuable. So, the 1960 Les Paul Custom, a stunning instrument, in great condition (Davidson believes a “cowboy chord player” previously owned it because the only fret wear is on the first three frets), was a bargain.
“Neal just missed the boat, which is a shame,” he says.
You can read the full story about this remarkable Les Paul in the latest issue of Guitarist – get it, or better still, subscribe and save, at Magazines Direct.
