John Lennon’s Framus Hootenanny acoustic guitar, which was found in an attic after disappearing for 50 years, has become one of the most expensive guitars ever sold at auction.
The discovery of the 12-string guitar – famed for featuring on the Help! recording sessions in the ‘60s – was announced last month at an unveiling in London hosted by auctioneers, Julien’s Auctions.
At the time, Julien’s claimed the vintage Framus could set a new world record for a guitar to be sold under the hammer, potentially surpassing Kurt Cobain’s Martin D-18e, which sold for over $6,000,000 in 2020.
The Framus didn’t quite reach those heights, but it did comfortably make it onto the list, having eventually sold after 20 bids for a whopping $2,857,000.
That figure makes the legendary Beatles instrument the fifth most expensive guitar to have sold at auction, usurping the $2.7 million ‘Reach Out to Asia’ Stratocaster and coming in behind none other than Eddie Van Halen’s Hot For Teacher Kramer, which went for $3,932,000 last year.
Notably, it also becomes the most expensive Beatles guitar to go under the hammer – a mantle previously held by John Lennon’s $2.4 million Gibson J-160E.