The Jim Irsay Collection sale live: David Gilmour's Black Strat sells for record-shattering $14.5 million in the biggest guitar auction in history

The room's filled up since this writer took this photo. Recognize those guitars up there in the front?

No blockbuster guitar sales yet, but we've just seen one of Ringo Starr's drum kits sell for north of $2 million!

Owned by John Lennon and used by him for the Beatles' 1964 Christmas show – then later gifted to Ringo Starr – this 1964 Rickenbacker has become the first mega guitar sale of the auction, with a sale price of $1.27 million.

Aaaaand the 1964 Gibson SG pictured below – used extensively by George Harrison from 1966-1968 – has said, “hold my beer!” $2.27 million! This was well over its estimate. Will that be a theme as the evening goes on?

Though not the most valuable guitar in the lot, this custom, prototype guitar made by Vox for the Beatles in 1966 is certainly one of the most unique. Someone's just parted ways with just about $600k to grab it.

One of the most iconic guitars of the 1960s, Eric Clapton’s The Fool SG, has just sold for a whopping $3 million, after a massive bidding war. This is also far above its estimate. One of the most significant six-strings in the lot, it will forever be associated with Slowhand's tenure in Cream.

So, I'm not supposed to curse, but holy shit. David Gilmour's Black Strat, the guitar most synonymous with the Pink Floyd legend, has just sold for $14.5 million, after 21 minutes of bidding. This more than doubles – destroys, really – the previous record for the most expensive guitar ever sold at auction.

Well, the excitement from the Black Strat sale lasted about 10 minutes. Jerry Garcia's “Tiger” guitar has also obliterated the pre-auction record mark, selling for $11.5 million. Two guitars have more than doubled, or come close to doubling, the previous record for the most expensive guitar ever sold at auction, in less than 15 minutes.

It almost doesn't feel noteworthy at this point, but the $6 million flat high water mark set by Kurt Cobain's MTV Unplugged Martin D-18E six years ago has been eclipsed a third time – by the Nirvana man's Smells Like Teen Spirit Mustang, previously the second most expensive guitar ever sold at auction. It's fetched $6.9 million.

The Martin 000-42 Eric Clapton used for his beloved, enormously successful MTV Unplugged performance has also fetched a princely sum: $4.1 million. Classic rock-affiliated six-strings in particular have blown well past their estimated values this evening.

And that about wraps this sucker up, in terms of blockbuster guitars. We figured going in that this would be the biggest guitar auction of all time, and truly, nothing else comes within the zip code of this sale. For the first time (at least publicly), we've seen individual guitars sell for eight figures. We only hope that some (all, ideally) of the new owners of these instruments follow in the footsteps of their previous owner in not keeping them permanently behind glass.

Until then, we uh, need to completely re-write our list of the most expensive guitars ever sold at auction...