David Gilmour’s guitar is now the most expensive guitar ever sold

David Gilmour’s iconic black Stratocaster sold at auction for $14.5 million at Christie’s in New York, making it the most expensive guitar ever sold in the world. The six-string, which Gilmour played on Pink Floyd’s albums “The Dark Side Of The Moon”, “Wish You Were Here”, “Animals” and “The Wall”, where it appears in the famous solo of “Comfortably Numb”, was auctioned at an auction of guitars belonging to the late Jim Irsay, former owner of the NFL team Indianapolis Colts, who passed away last year.

The Black Strat had previously been sold for $3,975,000 at another Christie’s auction in 2022, during a sale of 127 objects from the Pink Floyd guitarist’s personal collection, organized to raise funds for ClientEarth, an organization made up of lawyers and environmental experts committed to the fight against climate change and the protection of nature and the environment.

A portion of the proceeds from the latest sale, which broke the previous record paid for a guitar, the $6 million spent on the equally iconic 1959 Martin D-18E played by Kurt Cobain during Nirvana’s “MTV Unplugged” special, will be donated to philanthropic causes.

Other guitars from Irsay’s collection also include a Doug Irwin guitar played by Jerry Garcia during his last concert with the Grateful Dead, which also exceeded the price paid for Cobain’s Martin, selling for $11.5 million.

The auction was followed live by “Guitar World”, reporting other important sales, such as a 1964 Rickenbacker belonging to John Lennon (1.27 million dollars), a 1964 Gibson SG used by George Harrison (2.27 million), a Vox custom built for the Beatles in 1966 (600 thousand dollars), Eric Clapton’s Gibson SG “The Fool” (3 million), the played Fender Mustang by Kurt Cobain in “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (6 million) and an acoustic Martin 000-42 used by Eric Clapton in his album “MTV Unplugged” (4.1 million).