David Gilmour's iconic black Stratocaster has sold for $14.5 million at Christie's in New York, becoming the most expensive guitar ever sold in the process.
The guitar, which Gilmour played on Pink Floyd's The Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall – where it featured on the iconic solo from Comfortably Numb – was sold as part of an auction of guitars belonging to the late Jim Irsay, former owner of NFL team the Indianapolis Colts, who died last year.
The black Stat was previously sold for $3,975,000 at another Christie's auction in 2022, during a sale of 127 items from Gilmour’s personal collection to raise money for ClientEarth, a group of lawyers and environmental experts fighting against climate change to protect nature and the environment.
A portion of the proceeds of the latest sale, which smashed the previous price paid for a guitar, the $6 million paid for the equally iconic 1959 Martin D-18E acoustic played by Kurt Cobain during Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged show, will be donated to philanthropic causes.
Other guitars in Irsay's collection include a Doug Irwin guitar played by Jerry Garcia during his final show with the Grateful Dead, which also beat the price paid for Cobain's Martin and sold for $11.5 million.
Our colleagues at Guitar World, who have been blogging live from the auction, report that other sales include a 1964 Rickenbacker owned by John Lennon ($1.27m), a 1964 Gibson SG used by George Harrison ($2.27m), a one-off Vox made for the Beatles in 1966 ($600k), Eric Clapton’s "The Fool" Gibson SG ($3m), the Fender Mustang played by Kurt Cobain on Smells Like Teen Spirit ($6m) and a Martin 000-42 acoustic guitar used by Eric Clapton used on his MTV Unplugged album ($4.1m).
