A newly discovered guitar that John Lennon used to record several Beatles songs in the 1960s before disappearing for 50 years has sold at auction for $2.9 million, becoming one of the band’s most treasured memorabilia.
The 12-string acoustic guitar, called Hootenanny, is believed to have been lost after Mr. Lennon and his bandmate George Harrison used it to record the Beatles’ 1965 albums “Rubber Soul” and “Help!” and the band’s film soundtrack of the same name, said Julien’s Auctions, the Los Angeles-based auction house that handled the sale Wednesday.
Later that year, Mr. Lennon gave the 1964 guitar, made by German instrument maker Framus, to Gordon Waller, a member of the British pop duo Peter & Gordon. Mr. Waller passed it on to one of his road managers, who took the guitar to his home in the British countryside and threw it in the attic, the auction house said.
More than 50 years later, a man in Britain discovered the guitar in his parents’ attic as they were leaving home, Darren Julien, co-founder of Julien Auctions, said in a video. After finding it — and its original guitar case — they alerted the auction house in March, Mr. Julien said.
“The son told us he always heard his father talk about this guitar, but he thought it was lost,” Martin Nolan, another co-founder of Julien’s Auctions, said in the video.
The auction house consulted Andy Babiuk, a Beatles expert who has authenticated the band’s memorabilia in the past, to verify the guitar. After comparing the instrument’s wood grain and wear patterns to those in archival images, Mr. Babiuk determined that the guitar was the one played by Mr. Lennon, the auction house said.
“Check your attic, folks,” Mr. Nolan said.
Other famous instruments have reappeared after being lost for more than five decades. Paul McCartney’s Höfner violin bass was found last year. Mr. Lennon’s Gibson acoustic guitar, also forgotten, was sold for $2.4 million to an anonymous buyer in 2015.
After half a century in the attic, Mr Lennon’s Hootenanny was in need of restoration. Ryan Schuermann, a repairman in Los Angeles, conducted a complicated process of removing his neck and attaching it to the body at a better angle.
The guitar, featuring a spruce top, mahogany back and sides, 19-fret rosewood fingerboard and decorative rosette, was sold with a Maton guitar case and box set DVD for the film “Help!” and a collection of photographs from the making of the film.
The guitar was estimated to be worth $600,000 to $800,000 before the auction. It sold to an anonymous buyer for $2,857,500, becoming the fifth most expensive guitar ever sold, the auction house said.
“Finding this remarkable instrument is like finding a lost Rembrandt or Picasso,” Mr. Julien added in a statement, “and it still looks and plays like a dream.”
Gn entert
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