A guitar said to have belonged to John Lennon, and engraved with his intricate carvings, went on sale on an auction website today for $1.3 million. The ?lost? guitar is adorned with symbols, including a heart pierced by an arrow, and a self portrait by the former Beatle.
The six-string acoustic guitar is also decorated with a letter B, for Beatles, a drawing of an apple and the numbers nine and two threes, representing the birthdays of John, Yoko and son Sean.
It was acquired by the memorabilia website momentsintime.com, which recently offered for sale an album cover signed by Lennon for Mark Chapman, hours before Chapman shot the musician dead in New York.
Website curator Gary Zimet said: ?Beyond it being an instrument on which he played and composed, it?s also an extraordinary work of art hand-created by Lennon.?
He said: ?The history of the guitar is equally fascinating.
?Lennon gave the instrument to a friend in the 1970s and when the friend got divorced, he gave many personal possessions to his in-laws.
?The father-in-law died and the mother-in-law sold the entire estate.
?Everything else was thrown out in a dumpster at Apple Blossom Farm, the estate of a wealthy family in Westchester New York.
?A maintenance man from a neighbouring estate was told of the disposal, and knew that the family owned Lennon?s guitar.
?He then looked in the dumpster, saw the guitar and retrieved it, saving it from sure destruction. He has had it in his possession since 1981.?
Lennon?s widow, Yoko Ono, described the guitar in detail in a documentary eight years ago.
She said it ?had all kinds of designs and meanings that didn?t mean anything to anyone but her and John?.
?It?s a beat-up, six-string acoustic guitar with a circle carved into the bottom containing some peculiar scrawling,? she said.
Mr Zimet said he tried to contact Ono about the discovery of the guitar but she had not replied. |
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