Beatles Gibson Guitar Up For Auction.

A Gibson acoustic guitar that used to belong to Beatle John Lennon, which went missing in 1963, is to be auctioned later this year in America at Beverly Hills-based Julien’s Auctions. The 1962 Gibson J-160E acoustic guitar, which was bought by Lennon from Rushworth’s Music House in Liverpool for £161, will go on sale on November 6th and is expected to fetch a cool $800,000. However, according to Julien’s Auctions owner, Darren Julien, the guitar could top the auction record of $965,000 set in 2013 for an electric guitar previously owned by Bob Dylan.

“John Lennon items don’t come up very often because a lot of people keep them,” Julien commented. “This was one of his favourite guitars; he talked about wishing he still had it.” The guitar disappeared during a Beatles Christmas show at Finsbury Park in 1963, before surfacing some 50 years later after it was bought by a man named John McCaw in a second-hand store in the US.

It was then verified by Andy Babiuk, a Beatles equipment expert who was able to match the guitar’s serial code and distinguishing marks and features to images and clips of Lennon performing with it. According to Babiuk, the guitar was used to record the song ‘Love Me Do’ and was played regularly in live performances. It was also used in the writing of hits such as ‘She Loves You’, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’, ‘Please, Please, Me’, ‘All My Loving’, ‘From Me to You’ and ‘This Boy’.