A guitar, used by John Lennon and George Harrison in their album recordings Help! It is Rubber Soul, was forgotten for 50 years in the attic of a British family linked to the music industry. Its rediscovery was due to the couple’s children, who during the process of moving house searched the attic and questioned their parents about the guitar’s origins. “Ah, it’s from John”, they heard in response.
This Hootenannymanufactured in Bavaria in the early 60s by Framuswill be auctioned in May by the North American Julien’s Auctionsin New York.
Courtesy Julien’s Auctions/ Beatles Photo Library
In a promotional video, the auction house’s co-founder and executive director, Darren Julien, tells how they are contacted daily by people who think they have spectacular pieces to show them. Most of the time, he says, these objects are not authentic or the story they are told is not confirmed. But last March, when they were organizing an auction of celebrity objects in the United Kingdom, they were contacted by a young man who explained that his parents were moving house and had found a guitar in the attic, which his father often talked about, but which they thought lost.
And that Hootenanny wasn’t just any guitar. It was with her that the Beatles recorded their songs You’ve got to hide your love away, It’s only love, I’ve just seen a face, Norwegian wood It is girl. At the end of 1965, the guitar was given as a gift by John Lennon to Gordon Waller, from the band Peter & Gordon, for whom Lennon and McCartney wrote songs. Later, Waller gave the guitar to his manager, who took it home and stored it in the attic where it remained forgotten for more than five decades.
On the website, the auctioneer explains that to confirm that this Hootenanny, serial number 51083, is in fact the guitar that belonged to Lennon, they turned to Andy Babiuk, musician and specialist in Beatles material. They ensure that the guitar has marks that make it easily identifiable when compared with images in photographs taken during the Beatles’ recording sessions in the studio, as well as with some scenes from the film. Help! and that its sound is unmistakable.
The guitar, now restored, is also being auctioned with the Maton box, inside covered in yellow velvet and with a dealer’s label also identifiable in several of the photographs from the time.
Due to the temperature and humidity conditions expected in an attic, the auction house explains that it had to decide between keeping the guitar as it was and selling it “as a Beatles artifact intended only to be on display”, or restoring it so that it was “a functional and playable musical instrument.”
They opted for the second hypothesis. “We saw no other way forward: musical instruments are intended to make music, and a guitar so important to the history of music deserves to be recovered”, they explain on the website, adding that the restoration was the responsibility of the renowned Ryan Schuermann, from LA Guitar Repair.
The bidding base for the auction, which will take place on the 29th and 30th of May, is between 600 thousand and 800 thousand dollars (approximately 560 and 750 thousand euros). But Julien’s Auctions is confident it can surpass its 2015 Beatles guitar auction record with the sale of John Lennon’s Gibson J-160E. They even estimate that this Hootenanny PIt could become the most valuable guitar ever sold at auction.
