Ninety guitars owned by the late Jeff Beck will be auctioned – with a £1 million price tag – in January 2025.
Beck, who died in 2023, aged 78, is regarded as one of the greatest guitarists of the rock era.
Beck played in a number of groups (including Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages) before finding success as a member of the Yardbirds between 1965 and 1967.
He went on to record as a solo artist and in several iterations of the Jeff Beck Group, which started with a line up including Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, Nicky Hopkins, and Aynsley Dunbar.
He continued to play – most recently with Johnny Depp and Ozzy Osbourne – until just before his death.
As a player, Beck was renowned for his blues playing, his innovation, and willingness to cross and mix genres. He was particulary associated with the Fender Stratocaster but was first entranced by the Gibson Les Paul.
He once said: “My Strat is another arm, it’s part of me. It doesn’t feel like a guitar at all. It’s an implement which is my voice.”
His guitar collection will be sold at Christie’s in London with 90 guitars making up the majority of the lots in a seven day series of sales.
Currently expected to realised the most at the £1-million sale is an oxblood Gibson Les Paul used through the 1970s. It carries a £350,000 to £500,000 estimate.
Beck heard Les Paul playing on the radio in his childhood home and decided the electric guitar was for him. He owned several standout Gibson models in his inspiration’s name.
A number of Fenders are also expected to make more than £50,000 each.
A post 1956 Tele-Gib solid body has an estimate of £100,000 to £150,000.
A post 1958 Strat could reach as much as £80,000 say Christie’s.
Sandra Beck, Jeff’s widow, is selling the guitars, which she says, “need to be shared, played and loved again.”
Beck is a legendary musician, while not being an enormous celebrity or star. Among his biggest fans are other musicians, and he worked with some of the most notable players across several generations since the 1960s.
Perhaps some of these guitars will find homes with some of today’s greatest players.
He remains influential today, and Gibson released a custom model in his honour this year.
Christie’s said in a statement: “All the guitars he played tell a story and bear the unmistakable signs of his hands, from the Gibson Les Pauls – the ‘Yardburst’ he bought in London in 1966 and the iconic ‘Oxblood’ depicted on the cover of Blow By Blow – to the Gretsches inspired by Cliff Gallup of The Blue Caps, and the Fender Teles and Strats which were his ‘workhorses.’”
Music memorabilia shows no signs of suffering from broader economic problems, and guitars in particular are fetching enormous prices.
Last year a Kurt Cobain Stratocaster that he had smashed on stage made nearly £500,000 at auction. Last week an early George Harrison solid-body electric was auctioned for just over £1 million.
