‘Burned’ Hendrix guitar goes under the hammer
LONDON, England (AP) — A guitar burned onstage by Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles’ first contract with Brian Epstein are up for sale Thursday, and auctioneers predict bidding could run to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Elvis Presley’s fingerprints and the audio archive of legendary music producer Joe Meek are also included in the big-bucks London sale, which suggests the market in rock’n'roll memorabilia is booming.
The star lot at the sale, run by specialist auctioneer Fame Bureau, is a Fender Stratocaster that Hendrix set alight during a concert at London’s Astoria in March 1967. The musician burned another guitar at the Monterey Pop festival later the same year, where the stunt was caught on film.
The Fame Bureau says the scorched guitar was found last year in a garage at the home of a relative of one of Hendrix’s business associates. It is predicted to sell for up to $900,000.
Also going under the hammer is Epstein’s copy of his management contract with The Beatles, a pact that proved to be worth millions.
Fame Bureau managing director Ted Owen said the contract was the most important music contract to have ever appeared.
The four-page document, signed on Jan. 24, 1962 by John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Richard Starkey — Ringo Starr’s real name — is expected to sell for $450,000.
The contract, also signed by Harold Hargreaves Harrison and James McCartney on behalf of their underage sons, marked the moment when all the pieces were in place for a global outbreak of Beatlemania.
