Session 5
Ambassador of Strings & Wings
at auction
When it comes to legendary instruments, it’s hard to get any bigger than the ones used by The Beatles. It doesn’t matter if it was in regular rotation for gigs, played in the studio, kept a backup, barely touched, or even just breathed on once by a Beatle: that guitar, or those drumsticks, or that plectrum, is going to go for big money.
The problem is that most of the gear used by the band members have been kept, stored, catalogued, and guarded with the same amount of privacy afforded to most nuclear launch codes. You want one of Paul McCartney’s Hofners? Good luck. How about George Harrison’s ‘Rocky’ Strat? Not a chance. John Lennon’s red Les Paul Junior from his final show? Squired away. Damn near nothing is going to find its way into the marketplace if it has any kind of Beatles connection.
But there are exceptions. Case in point: Paul McCartney’s Yamaha BB-1200 bass guitar that saw use during the late 1970s and early ’80s recently went up as part of a charity auction orgnanised by U2’s The Edge and producer Bob Ezrin to benefit their charity Music Rising. The bass fetched $496,100, which broke the record for most expense bass ever actioned, previously held by Bill Wyman’s 1969 Fender Mustang which sold for $384,000 at an auction in 2020.
When it comes to legendary instruments, it’s hard to get any bigger than the ones used by The Beatles. It doesn’t matter if it was in regular rotation for gigs, played in the studio, kept a backup, barely touched, or even just breathed on once by a Beatle: that guitar, or those drumsticks, or that plectrum, is going to go for big money.
The problem is that most of the gear used by the band members have been kept, stored, catalogued, and guarded with the same amount of privacy afforded to most nuclear launch codes. You want one of Paul McCartney’s Hofners? Good luck. How about George Harrison’s ‘Rocky’ Strat? Not a chance. John Lennon’s red Les Paul Junior from his final show? Squired away. Damn near nothing is going to find its way into the marketplace if it has any kind of Beatles connection.
But there are exceptions. Case in point: Paul McCartney’s Yamaha BB-1200 bass guitar that saw use during the late 1970s and early ’80s recently went up as part of a charity auction orgnanised by U2’s The Edge and producer Bob Ezrin to benefit their charity Music Rising. The bass fetched $496,100, which broke the record for most expense bass ever actioned, previously held by Bill Wyman’s 1969 Fender Mustang which sold for $384,000 at an auction in 2020.
