“It was so secretive that I, as a curator of the Met, had no idea what was actually there”: One of the world’s finest guitar collections has been kept under wraps for decades – now it’s been donated in full to the Met

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has received a landmark donation of historic electric guitars and acoustic guitars, which will be the lifeblood of a new permanent gallery that underscores the impact the instrument has had on popular music.

As per a report from The New Yorker, the collection of “500 of the finest guitars from the golden age of American guitar-making between 1920 and 1970” has been secretly curated over a number of decades.

The stories of these vintage guitars – many of which have changed the world with the music they were used to write – are headline-worthy unto themselves. The fact that this definitive collection of history-soaked instruments was gathered in secret over a huge period is another matter altogether.

The collector – read gear obsessive – is Dirk Ziff, a publishing heir and financier. He’s also a keen guitarist himself and has recorded and toured with Carly Simon. Vintage guitar connoisseur Perry Margouleff has been working alongside him as his advisor, and since 1987, they’ve amassed a collection that many would argue rivals Jim Isray’s star-studded buys.

Jayson Dobney, the Met’s curator of musical instruments, first met Margouleff in 2011, when he was secretly shown just some of the examples from a long-rumored 'secret trove' guitar collection.

“It was so secretive that when I, as a curator of the Met, came to visit, I had no idea what was actually there. I just saw those eight guitars,” he told The New Yorker.

Dobney then met Ziff in 2019, when Ziff attended the Met's Play It Loud exhibit. It became one of its most-attended events in recent years, helped attract a new crowd to the museum – and convinced Ziff to finally go public with his own collection.

The collection, which is set to be unveiled in Spring 2027, is quite something. Leo Fender’s first guitar made in 1948, Les Paul’s 1941 Epiphone “Klunker”, an oddball experiment that showcases the lineage of the Les Paul proper, and the 1959 'Burst Les Paul used by Keith Richards during The Rolling Stones’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 all feature. But it doesn’t end there.

Of course, pre-war Martins play a key part. Roy Rogers’ beloved 1930 OM-45 is included. There's also a Martin that is thought to date back to 1853 where it stood as a presentation model at the Crystal Palace Exhibition of the same year.

Elsewhere, the collection spans guitars significant for their creation, how they were wielded, or sometimes both. There's Gretsch's first prototype of Chet Atkins' signature guitar, built in 1955, a 1958 Korina Gibson flying V played by Neil Young, the second-ever solid-body guitar made by Paul Bigsby in 1948, and the first production model of a 1924 Gibson L-5 archtop, signed by its designer, Lloyd Loar.

Speaking to the New Yorker about the collection, Margouleff says that guitar in particular tells a story they want the collection to echo.

“If you looked at an automobile in 1924 and then looked at one today, it would be completely unrecognizable, the change is so dramatic,” he says. “If you went to a music store today and bought a new Gibson L-5, it might look identical to this one, in every way. They had it right from day one.”

“This is truly a trailblazing and transformative gift, positioning the Museum to be the epicenter for the appreciation and study of the American guitar,” says Max Hollein, The Met’s Chief Executive Officer. “We are immensely grateful to Dirk and Perry Margouleff, for their extraordinary commitment to assembling this world-class, one-of-a-kind collection over the course of decades.

“These guitars are examples of outstanding artistry and craftsmanship as well as visually powerful tools of expression and distinction. This gift celebrates the innovators, inventors, and manufacturers who created many different forms of the guitar to meet the needs of individual musicians, while also telling the stories of American music through the 20th century.”

Says Ziff: “Since embarking on this journey with Perry in 1987, our objective has been to assemble a comprehensive collection of American guitars, many of them historic and culturally significant, and preserve them for the benefit of future generations.

“It is genuinely thrilling to see our vision validated at the greatest cultural institution in the world. I am honored to help play a role in broadening the Museum’s reach and impact by making these great instruments accessible to legions of guitar lovers from all over the world.”

“To know that there is so much passion behind this project is thrilling,” adds Jimmy Page, who first started working with the Met for the Play it Loud exhibit. “I would like to take my hat off to the people who have been behind this—and to The Met for its dedication to construct something that is going to be of such great importance for generations to come.”