At a Christie’s sale in New York the other evening, there was wild applause. An electric guitar had just sold for $14.5m (£10.8m), a new world record. You read that right, an electric guitar. Not an antique, guitar-equivalent of a Stradivarius violin, but an ordinary, modern Fender Stratocaster.
It was not simply any run-of-the-mill instrument but one that was played by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd on the band’s classics, Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Comfortably Numb and Money. Nor was it a sale of one guitar. Two, in addition to Gilmour’s “Black Strat”, achieved record prices. In all, the entire sale of instruments and memorabilia with iconic associations in music and literature raised a whopping $94.5m.
