Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour has auctioned his entire 125-guitar collection off and donated all of the money to help fight climate change. Gilmour is primarily known as one of the most revered guitar players in history, but what most people don’t know is that he is also very passionate about fighting global warming.
Christie’s was responsible for organizing the auction. Their admirable job of displaying the collection to the broadest possible audience by creating a virtual tour of the collection in exhibition form and highlighting the significance of each of the 125 guitars from Gilmour’s collection is largely the reason why the auction was such a grand success. Christie’s body of work on documenting the collection is massive, beautifully fascinating, and well worth a look, especially if you are a Dave Gilmour or Pink Floyd fan.
An impressive 58 of Gilmour’s guitars each sold for $100,000 or more and 20 of those guitars are now among the most valuable guitars to have ever sold at auction! The top seller was Gilmour’s “Black Strat” which sold for US$3.975 million, becoming the most valuable guitar ever sold, privately or at auction. It trumped what was the record – a $2.7 million, fetched by the “Reach Out to Asia” Fender Stratocaster auctioned for charity in 2005, and signed by Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian May, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, Mark Knopfler, Ray Davies, Liam Gallagher, Ronnie Wood, Tony Iommi, Angus and Malcolm Young, Paul McCartney, Sting, Ritchie Blackmore, Bryan Adams and David Gilmour. John Lennon’s Gibson J-160E sold at an auction for $2.41 million is the next most valuable guitar. It was used alongside Paul McCartney in writing and recording She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Please, Please, Me and All My Loving.
The Top Selling Guitars
“The Black Strat”
$3,975,000
This guitar was the jewel of the auction because it was Gilmour’s primary performance and recording guitar on every Pink Floyd album from 1970 to 1983 plus all four of his solo albums. That means it was the main guitar used on The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977) and The Wall (1979), as well as in the famous Gilmour guitar solos in Shine on You Crazy Diamond and Comfortably Numb. The Dark Side of the Moon is the third most successful album of all-time and The Wall is the second most successful double album in history. Therefore this guitar has been heard by billions of people for half a century.
1954 Fender Stratocaster #0001
$1,815,000
This guitar was the second most valuable in the auction because of the serial number #0001, and of course because of who used it. It is a beautiful instrument because it was built as a showcase piece with its white body, maple neck, three-way pick up selector and gold hardware. Which is why Gilmour used it to play Marooned, Coming Back to Life and Sorrow in the 2004 Strat Pack at Wembley Arena in honor of the Stratocaster’s 50th anniversary.
1969 C.F. Martin D-35
$1,095,000
This guitar was Gilmour’s primary studio acoustic guitar since 1971. He even mentions it in a couple of interviews. Sue Lawley on the BBC Radio 4 show Desert Island Discs asked him what his luxury “desert island” item would be. Gilmour responded, “Well, to me it’s not a luxury, it’s an essential. I need to take my guitar with me, my acoustic Martin D-35 guitar because life is impossible without a guitar.” Then again in 2003, Guitar Player magazine him which of his guitars had the most songs attached to it. Gilmour replied, “I guess it would be my Martin D-35. I used it on Wish You Were Here, and I’ve been using it ever since.” This guitar can be heard on Welcome To The Machine, as well as the title track of Wish You Were Here.
1984 Fender Stratocaster 57V
$615,000
This Candy Apple Red piece became Gilmour’s primary studio recording and performance guitar from 1988 to 2005. Gilmour played it on Paul McCartney’s Give My Regards to Broad Street album. It was also used for the guitar solo on No More Lonely Nights. It made its first stage appearance at the Live Aid concert in 1985 to play the remainder of Sensation, then Boys and Girls, Slave to Love and a rendition of John Lennon’s Jealous Guy.
1971 C.F. Martin D12-35
$531,000
This guitar was Gilmour’s chief 12-string studio acoustic for over forty years. He told Christie’s, “It gave me Wish You Were Here, which was very generous of it.”
Ex-Homer Haynes 1957 Fender Stratocaster
$495,000
This guitar was used in the promotion Gilmour’s 1984 solo album About Face, with a shot of Gilmour with the guitar featured in the official program for the tour. It was originally custom-made for country and jazz guitarist Henry D. “Homer” Haynes, according to George Gruhn of Gruhn Guitars.
1955 Gibson Les Paul Custom
$447,000
Gilmour purchased this 1955 “All Gold” Les Paul from Dave DeForrest at Guitar Trader in 1978 and then used it for the famous guitar solo on Pink Floyd’s hit single Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2) from their 1979 album The Wall which became Pink Floyd’s first number one single in both the UK and US. It was also used during the recording of Another Brick In The Wall (Part 3), then the recording of the song Round and Around on Pink Floyd’s 1987 album A Momentary Lapse of Reason and for his solos on Poles Apart and A Great Day For Freedom on 1994’s The Division Bell. This guitar also appeared on stage at an evening of Beatles music at Cowdray Park in West Sussex 2002 to play a medley of early Beatles numbers including I Wanna Hold Your Hand, She Loves You, Please Please Me, and Love Me Do.
1958 Gretsch White Penguin
$447,000
This solid-body Falcon is one of the rarest and most collectible American vintage guitars with a total output of around 50 guitars. Gilmour kept it for home and studio use only. Gilmour told Christie’s, “at some point, I heard there was a sister or brother guitar to the White Falcon and set around to find one of those. It’s a lovely instrument with something all of its own. These guitars can be so similar, same make, but they sing out in a different way. I’ve played it a lot; it’s a lovely, lovely thing.”
1966 Fender Stratocaster
$423,000
This guitar was first used publicly at the Pop Deux Festival de St. Tropez in 1970 after being Gilmour purchased by Gilmour in a second-hand shop in England. In the early 70s, he personally stripped the guitar back to its natural wood finish, after which it was fitted with Dawson Stereophonic pickups in 1976 and kept for studio use. Gilmour told Christie’s, “I loved Fender Stratocasters. I loved Hank Marvin playing the Fender Stratocaster… The Stratocaster was my boyhood dream guitar, and sometimes it’s hard to wean yourself off that sort of thing.”
1976 Ovation Custom Legend
$399,000
This guitar became one of David Gilmour’s longest-serving instruments, carried on every Pink Floyd and solo tour since and famously used to write and record the original demo that became Comfortably Numb.
1974 Jedson electric steel guitar
$300,000
This guitar became the performance guitar for One Of These Days and Shine On You Crazy Diamond, turned to an open G major – G, B, D, G, B, E. It is one of a pair of Jedsons from Ivor Arbiter’s Sound City in London. Purchased then modified with Fender pick-ups swapped in and new electronics courtesy of luthier Roger Giffin. The other (red Jedson) became the performance guitar for The Great Gig In The Sky.
1983/1989 Fender Stratocaster
$275,000
This guitar is another one of a pair purchased. Gilmour recalled in an interview with International Musician in August 1984, “I played through a lot of guitars and picked the best two.” This Vintage White 57V Stratocaster became Gilmour’s guitar of choice. He used it as the main guitar on his About Face Tour from March 31 to July 16, 1984, in support of his second solo album About Face and featured it heavily in the tour documentary Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. Later on, he used it for live performances, including the first North American leg of Pink Floyd’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour in 1987.
1953 Gibson Les Paul
$250,000
Gilmour used the guitar during a recording session for Bryan Ferry’s Olympia album, and Gilmour can be seen playing this guitar in the documentary film The Making of Olympia.
1986 Gibson J-200 Celebrity
$243,750
This rare guitar was produced in a limited run of just 90 instruments. Gilmore used it extensively during the recording sessions for Pink Floyd’s 1994 album The Division Bell before it made its most significant public performance on July 2, 2005, when it was used in Wish You Were Here, broadcast live to an estimated 1.5 billion viewers across the world. This performance was the historic reunion of David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Richard Wright and Roger Waters in their classic-era Pink Floyd line up at Live 8 in London’s Hyde Park, 2005. It was their first performance together in 24 years!
1985 Gibson J-200 Celebrity
$237,500
John Illsley of Dire Straits originally owned this guitar. Illsley had used it on stage for performances of So Far Away on Dire Straits’ On Every Street Tour. Gilmour played this guitar throughout The Division Bell Tour for performances of Poles Apart but tuned to DADGAD. Gilmour explained the unusual tuning in an interview with Guitar World magazine: “…I thought it was something new that I had invented. One day, I was on holiday in Greece, and I had an acoustic guitar with me. I just decided to tune the bottom string down to D and continued to experiment until I arrived at that tuning. Then I mucked around a bit and “Poles Apart” fell out of it a few minutes later.”
1984 Fender Stratocaster 57V
$212,500
George Harrison played this guitar at Gilmour’s Guy Fawkes Night fireworks party in 1988, then, later on, it was then used on Pink Floyd’s 1994 The Division Bell Tour by Tim Renwick. Most recently, it was played by longtime Pink Floyd collaborator Jon Carin when he used it while performing with David Gilmour during the first three legs of the Rattle That Lock Tour from September 2015 to April 2016.
To see the full list of guitars and the essay of information that accompanies each one, check out Christie’s website. It’s fascinating!
