John Lennon’s 1963 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins Nashville hollow body guitar will be hitting the auction block next month via TracksAuction.com. More famously known for playing his iconic Epiphone Casino and Rickenbacker 325 guitars, the Gretsch 6120 was used to record The Beatles’ 1966 number-one single “Paperback Writer.” A year after the guitar was used for the studio recording, Lennon gave the Gretsch to his younger cousin, David Birch, who has kept the guitar ever since. Authenticated by Beatles gear expert Andy Babiuk, the guitar’s unique wood grain matches that of the photographs taken of Lennon and the guitar during the “Paperback Writer” session. “One of the most significant of John’s guitars to come onto the market in the last 30 years,” the Gretsch 6120 is a double cutaway bound hollow body arch top guitar made of laminated maple with an orange stain finish. The instrument features a three-piece maple/walnut neck, an ebony fingerboard, Gretsch Neo-Classic thumb inlays, simulated F-holes, gold Gretsch FilterTron pickups, a Bigsby B6 vibrato tailpiece, and a snap-on back pad. With a replaced bridge and the broken pickguard removed, the guitar has only undergone minor alterations and is expected to fetch anywhere from $640,000 to $1 million. Online bidding begins on November 14, while the live auction will take place on November 23.
Born on October 9, 1940 in Liverpool, England, John Ono Lennon was an English musician, singer, songwriter, artist, and activist who rose to worldwide fame as a founding member of The Beatles, the most popular and commercially successful band in the history of popular music. Over the course of his 23-year professional career, Lennon formed one of music’s greatest songwriting partnerships with Paul McCartney, penned his own Beatles classics, including “Come Together,” “I Am the Walrus,” “All You Need is Love,” “In My Life,” “Help!,” and “Strawberry Fields Forever,” and went on to embark on a critically acclaimed solo career, which produced iconic songs such as “Imagine,” “Give Peace a Chance,” and “Working Class Hero.” Posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, Lennon has sold more than 14 million solo albums in the United States and is responsible for 25 number-one singles on the Billboard U.S. Hot 100.
Scroll down for more pictures of 1963 Gretsch 6120 guitar and a video about the instrument, courtesy of TracksAuction.com.
Photos and video by TracksAuction.com
