Did you have $2.41 million laying around the house that you just didn’t know what to do with? Well on Saturday you could have bought the famous John Lennon Gibson J-160E, which was used in the recording of the Beatles’ “Please Please Me” and “With the Beatles” albums and the Beatles’ first single “Love Me Do” / “P.S. I Love You,”. The $2.41 million dollar bid shattered all estimates Saturday on the Julien’s Live auction block way above the $800,000 estimate. Lennon originally purchased the guitar at Rushworth’s Music House in Liverpool in September 1962 for £161.
The guitar was “lost” for over 40 years and it stills remains unclear how the guitar went missing. It resurfaced in a San Diego music shop in the summer of 1967 and the buyer had no idea the guitar once belonged to Lennon. In 2008 it was finally discovered about the guitar’s history.
Julien’s Live stated, “Its importance in Beatles history cannot be overstated, this guitar is intimately bound to the early career of The Beatles. This is the earliest and most significant John Lennon guitar to be auctioned.” By comparison, Lennon’s Gretsch guitar, used on the Beatles’ 1966 single “Paperback Writer” sold for $530,000 in 2014.
Half of the proceeds from the sale of Lennon’s Gibson went to the Spirit Foundation, a charitable organization that Lennon and Yoko Ono formed.
Also on the auction block was the Beatles-emblazoned Ludwig bass drumhead, used by Ringo Starr during the Beatles 1964 debut on The Ed Sullivan Show which sold for $2.125 million, more than doubling its $1 million estimate. A baseball signed by all four Beatles in 1966 also sold for $100,000.
Other items auctioned off were Kurt Cobain’s green cardigan, worn by the singer during Nirvana’s legendary MTV Unplugged performance went for $137,500 and Elvis Presley’s 24K gold leaf piano also sold for $600,000.
