Frank Zappa’s celebrated “Baby Snakes” guitar is tipped to lead an auction of notable guitars in December.
The Gibson SG copy is expected to make as much as $500,000 at Heritage Auction’s December 5th Vintage Guitars and Musical Instruments Signature Auction in Dallas, Texas.
It was bought by Frank Zappa 1974 from maker Bart Nagel, who was just 19 at the time. The guitarist had further extensive modifications done on the instrument.
Alongside it is the guitar on which George Harrison and Eric Clapton first collaborated in the songwriting sessions that produced Here Comes the Sun, Badge, and Layla, the song Clapton wrote for Pattie Boyd/Harrsion, George’s wife who Clapton would later marry.
A guitar on which legends were born. An early Gibson acoustic strummed by Harrison and Clapton and named “Pattie” for the woman they both loved. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions.
That guitar is a 1913 Gibson Style O archtop acoustic that was gifted to Delaney Bramlett of the duo Delaney & Bonnie with whom Clapton later worked. Bramlett passed away in 2008 and the guitar was sold in 2013 when it realised $10,240.
The bass played by Bootsie Collins while in James Brown’s backing band, The J.B.s, will also be sold. The 1969 Fender Jazz model was bought for Collins and then remained with the band when he was replaced by Fred Thomas.
It comes to market via an associate of the band who was given the instrument as payment for room and board after he gave the band shelter when the hard-driving James Brown left them in Florida after a row over payments.
This is the first time the “Baby Snakes” guitar has been sold. In 2016, a sale from the Zappa estate (he died in 1993) saw a Stratocaster make over $70,000. In 2023 Zappa’s first-owned guitar, a Gibson ES-5, was sold for $63,500.
