Nearly two years on from the death of Jeff Beck, the British guitar wizard who enjoyed a long and enigmatic career, fans have the opportunity to own some of his instruments, coming to auction at Christie’s London.
“The Ultimate Guitarist’s Guitar Hero” brings forward more than 130 items, including 90 guitars, for a January 22 sale. Valued at north of $1 million, the sale follows on from Beck’s wish that his instruments should be shared posthumously.
“These guitars were his great love and after some hard thinking I decided they need to be shared, played, and loved again,” Sandra Beck, the musician’s widow, said in a statement announcing the sale. “He was a maestro of his trade. He never lusted after commercial success and I hope the future guitarists who acquire these items are able to move closer to the genius who played them.”
The guitars on offer span the full breadth of Beck’s six-decade career, which drew from blues, rock, and folk, and would prove influential for heavy metal and psychedelic rock.
The leading lot is a 1954 Oxblood Gibson Les Paul, which appears on the cover of Blow by Blow (1975), painted by John Collier. It’s estimated at between £350,000 and £500,000 ($442,000 and $631,000). The story goes that while on tour in the U.S. with the Jeff Beck Group in 1972, his flame-maple sunburst Les Paul was stolen and so, while he was in Memphis, Tennessee, a fan sold him the guitar, which had been golden before a refinish.
Jeff Beck bought the Oxblood guitar from a fan in 1972. Courtesy Christie’s.
Beck came to prominence as a member of the Yardbirds, a 1960s rock band that at times included Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, and his 1958 Gibson Les Paul from the era is also hitting the block. Beck modified the guitar himself and would play it on the Yardbirds’s album Roger The Engineer (1966) as well as his own solo debut, Truth (1968). It’s estimated at between £40,000 and £60,000 ($50,500 to $75,600).
Elsewhere, there’s a one-of-a-kind guitar that was made for Beck by designer Seymour Duncan. It’s a hybrid nicknamed a Tele-Gib, as it combines the body of a Fender Telecaster and the neck of a Gibson PAF. It’s estimated at between £100,000 and £150,000 ($126,000 and $190,000).
The Tele-Gib was specially made for Beck by Seymour Duncan. Courtesy Christie’s.
“His magic lay in the balance between the fluidity and aggression of his playing and his technical brilliance,” said Amelia Walker, Christie’s head of private and iconic collection sales in London, in press materials, adding that the house is honored to handle “the guitars through which he shared his emotion and voice—and to pay tribute to his enduring legacy.”
The collection, which will swing through Los Angeles for a public display in early December, is the latest in a series of high-profile musical sales. In January, Christie’s sold a range of items from onetime Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler’s collection, which raised $11.2 million; in August, the collection of Tom Petty sold at Bonhams; and, in September, the Epiphone Les Paul Standard that Noel Gallagher played on Oasis’s debut single sold for $174,000 at Sotheby’s.