An electric guitar owned by The Beatles' George Harrison sold at auction for almost £400,000

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

An electric guitar played by The Beatles' George Harrison has sold for almost £400,000 at an auction in New York. The former Beatle played the 1962 Rickenbacker 425 guitar on British TV shows like Ready Steady Go! in 1963, prior to the band's US invasion in 1964.

Harrison, who died in 2001 aged 58, also used the instrument during the recording of I Want to Hold Your Hand and This Boy. The guitar’s pre-sale estimate was up to $600,000 (£356,000) said auction house Julien's but it eventually sold for $657,000 (£390,641) The sale topped the previous sale of a VOX guitar played by both Harrison and Lennon in May last year which fetched £269,000 but fell far short of the record $965,000 (£591,000) set by a Bob Dylan guitar in December. Harrison bought the guitar in 1963 in Mount Vernon, Illinois, while visiting his sister in the United States. The auction also saw the sale of a placard covered in doodles and signed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, from their ‘bed-in’ protest, which sold for £111,190, and a Hofner bass rented by Paul McCartney, which sold for £74,325.

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