PREVIEW

A guitar used by David Gilmour has set a new auction record after selling for $14.55 million (£10.8 million) in New York.

The instrument - known as the “Black Strat” - was sold during The Jim Irsay Collection: Hall of Fame auction held by Christie's on Thursday.

The sale formed part of a wider auction of memorabilia belonging to Jim Irsay, the late philanthropist, music enthusiast and owner and chief executive of the Indianapolis Colts American football team.

In total, the auction raised $84.1 million(£62.6 million) across all lots.

“Lot after lot we felt like we were making history,” said the President of Christie's Americas, Julien Pradels. “The Irsay sale did justice to the brilliance of the collector, and of the monumental pieces he brought together, iconic objects that tell the story of our culture and our times. The Irsay collection is singular, but Christie’s will have other amazing sales in this space moving forward.”

Gilmour originally bought the guitar new in May 1970 from Manny’s music shop in New York. It replaced an earlier black Stratocaster that had been stolen in New Orleans, along with the rest of Pink Floyd’s equipment, after the second show of the band’s third US tour.

After the theft forced the band to abandon the tour, Gilmour travelled home to London via New York and bought another black Stratocaster — this time with a maple neck — from Manhattan’s famed “Music Row”.

“It became my main guitar, the one I used pretty much on everything unless there was a reason to want a different sound,” Gilmour later said.
The instrument first appeared on stage at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music in Somerset in June 1970, where Pink Floyd performed alongside Led Zeppelin and Jefferson Airplane.

By 1971, after experimenting with several other
guitars, Gilmour had settled on the Black Strat as his preferred instrument.

The guitar became closely associated with some of Pink Floyd’s most celebrated recordings.
It was used extensively during the making of the band’s landmark 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon, recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London between 1972 and 1973.

The album — exploring the stresses and pressures of modern life — spent a record 741 consecutive weeks on the Billboard album chart and has sold more than 55 million copies worldwide.

Gilmour used the Black Strat for many of the album’s guitar parts, including the celebrated solo on Time and two of the three solos on Money.

The instrument’s distinctive appearance emerged after Gilmour replaced its standard white pickguard with a custom black one, creating the all-black look that inspired its nickname.
The guitar also played a central role in the recording of Pink Floyd’s 1975 album Wish You Were Here — Gilmour’s favourite Floyd record — including the sessions that produced Shine On You Crazy Diamond, a tribute to former bandmate Syd Barrett.

It later featured on the band’s albums Animals (1977) and The Wall (1979). During sessions for The Wall in France, Gilmour recorded the famous solo for Comfortably Numb, widely regarded as one of the greatest guitar solos ever recorded.
Over the 49 years he owned the instrument, Gilmour repeatedly modified it, experimenting with different pickups, switches, pickguards, tuners and no fewer than six neck changes in pursuit of the sound and playability he wanted.
Several other items in the sale also achieved notable prices.

A guitar associated with Jerry Garcia — the custom-built “Tiger” — sold for $11,560,000 (£8.6m), while Ringo Starr’s first Ludwig drum kit fetched $2,393,000 (£1.78m), setting a record for the most expensive drum kit sold at auction.

A Beatles-logo drum head used on The Ed Sullivan Show sold for $2,881,000 (£2.15m), the highest price paid for a drum-related item.
The most expensive literary manuscript in the sale was the original typescript scroll of On the Road by Jack Kerouac, which sold for $12,135,000 (£9.0m).

Three further auctions from the Irsay collection are scheduled in the coming days, with additional items from American history due to be offered later this year.