John Lennon
Guitar that was lost for 50 years is being auctioned off
The Beatles: John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, George Harrison.
© United Archives GmbH
She was considered lost for decades. Now comes the guitar that John Lennon played on “Help!” played, under the hammer.
A guitar that John Lennon (1940-1980) and George Harrison (1943-2001) used when recording the albums “Help!” and “Rubber Soul” are going under the hammer. The musical instrument is said to have been lying in an attic for the last 50 years. Now it is being auctioned off at “Julien’s Auction” along with other memorabilia.
The Beatles’ acoustic guitar, which according to a statement from the auction house was made by the German company Framus in the early 1960s, was played primarily by John Lennon and is apparently also in the film “Help!” (“Hi-Hi-Help!”) where it is used in “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”. George Harrison used the guitar for, among other things, “Norwegian Wood”.
“Like discovering a lost Rembrandt or Picasso”
Darren Julien, co-founder and managing director of “Julien’s Auctions”, where the guitar is being auctioned, said, according to People magazine: “Finding this remarkable instrument is like discovering a lost Rembrandt or Picasso, and it still looks good and plays like a dream.”
He also said that the current owners – who had forgotten that they owned the instrument – were originally given the guitar as a gift from Gordon Waller (1945-2009) of pop stars Peter & Gordon. Waller gave the guitar to one of his managers, who took it home, put it in the attic and apparently didn’t care for it for decades.
In 2015, Julien’s Auctions sold another Lennon guitar: it fetched a price of $2.41 million. The newly discovered Framus guitar is estimated at $600,000 to $800,000, but could fetch a higher price than the other instrument because it is “more historically significant,” according to the auction house.