A 12-string acoustic guitar that belonged to the late John Lennon and was missing for 50 years will go up for sale at an auction in May after it was recently found in the attic of a home in Britain.
The auctioneers at the ‘Music Icons’ auction launch said the guitar, which is expected to exceed its estimate of $600,000 to $800,000, was used to record The Beatles‘ 1965 album ‘Help!’.
The instrument was rediscovered after auctioneers received a call from a son of the current owners after he found the instrument lying in an attic during a house move.
The founders of US-based Julien’s Auctions said they travelled to Britain to verify the guitar and found the original case—a Maton Australian-made guitar case—in the trash.
Martin Nolan, the executive director and co-founder of Julien’s Auctions, told Reuters the owners knew they had the instrument at one stage but thought it had been lost.
The guitar is believed to have ended up in their hands after a small chain of ownership that involved Lennon and British musicians Peter Asher and Gordon Waller, members of the 1960s pop duo ‘Peter and Gordon’.
“Gordon was gifted it from John Lennon, then Gordon gifted it to his road manager, and that’s where the guitar stayed for all these years,” Nolan said.
The guitar will be auctioned on May 29 at Hard Rock Cafe in New York and on the auctioneer’s website.
Earlier this year, a stolen Hofner bass guitar belonging to Paul McCartney was found and returned to the fellow Beatle after 51 years following a global hunt.
Musical instruments belonging to prominent members of the Beatles have fetched high prices at previous auctions.
In 2015, a guitar stolen from Lennon in the 1960s sold for $2.41 million at an auction in California.
The 12-string acoustic guitar will be on window-display at Hard RockCafe Piccadilly Circus until the end of April.
The May auction also includes memorabilia from late singers Amy Winehouse, Tina Turner and Michael Jackson, as well as from rockers Adam Clayton of U2 and Freddie Mercury of Queen.
(With inputs from Reuters)
