Yahoo News Eric Clapton’s 1970s-Era Guitar Could Fetch Up to $500,000 at Auction This Summer
One lucky bidder will be having a wonderful night this summer when they’re able to go home with one of rock and roll’s most famous instruments.
The guitar used by Eric Clapton when composing his hit “Wonderful Tonight” is coming to auction on June 12 at Bonhams, Reuters reported on Monday. The 1974 000-28 Martin acoustic is expected to hammer down for up to $500,000.
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“This was a touring hotel room guitar and I played it on stage during the 1970s,” Clapton once said. “It was a working instrument and probably my best friend at the time. It is a 000-28, the basic model without any inlay. It very much suited my way of looking at the world at that point.”
The instrument hits the auction block in its original condition, with no replacements or refinishes. Even so, it still looks great for a guitar that’s 50 years old—except for burn marks on the headstock where Clapton would put cigarettes under the strings while playing. (Of course, for any Clapton fan, that’s probably more of a feature than a flaw.) One side of the instrument features a sticker reading “She’s in love with a rodeo man,” a nod to a song by Don Williams, a friend and favorite of Clapton’s.
Known for his solo work as well as the time he spent with bands like the Yardbirds and Cream, Clapton came to own the Martin sometime in the mid-1970s. While he played it both on the stage and in the studio, the guitar’s claim to fame is the fact it was used to compose “Wonderful Tonight.” Released in 1977, the song was written by Clapton while his then-girlfriend Pattie Boyd was getting ready for a night out. As she wrote in her autobiography, Clapton responded with some of the song’s lyrics when she asked if she looked okay.
Back in 1999, Clapton himself sold the guitar at a Christie’s charity auction, with the proceeds going to his Crossroads Centre charity in Antigua. Now it’ll head to a new home, and for quite a pretty penny it seems.
“Clapton is … one of the greatest living guitarists of all time,” Claire Tole-Moir, the head of Bonhams’ popular-culture department, told Reuters. “To have a guitar that’s from such a pivotal time in his career and attached to such a pivotal song is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
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