The guitar dates from 1961 and was bought by the artist for only 65 dollars.
Jimi Hendrix guitar
With only three years of career, Jimi Hendrix made rock history thanks to his unprecedented skill on the guitar and a bewitching personality on stage. Hendrix is also remembered for always being accompanied by a Fender Stratocaster guitar, which, being left-handed, allowed him to slide his fingers freely across its frets thanks to its famous design.
However, before Hendrix could get his hands on one of these guitars that even for the time were very expensive, before his career took off in that distant year 1967 with the album Are You Experienced, Hendrix had in his possession several guitars that remained dusty for decades. Now, one of these pieces that today are considered a collector’s item by any music lover, has been put up for sale by Moments In Time, a global store dedicated to the purchase and sale of historical pieces of any kind.
It is the Epiphone Wilshire model 1961 guitar that has been offered for sale. Hendrix got this instrument shortly after he got out of his military training. By then, the musician had a Danelectro Standard 1960 that he traded for the Epiphone plus $65. Already with the new equipment, he began his fleeting career with the band The King Kasuals. More than 60 years after making this trade for the Epiphone, Moments In Time has given the guitar a value of $1.25 million.
Jimi Hendrix’s Epiphone Wilshire sold at a price of 1.25 million dollars (Photo: Moments in Time).
The guitar had already been offered for sale in 2008, although there is no record of what price was paid then. Now, an anonymous collector has decided to put a price on this historic guitar that many would consider exaggerated. That buyer who is willing to shell out over a million dollars for the guitar will also take home a photocopied letter of authenticity and several photographs of the musician playing his Wilshire in the early 60′s.
It is worth mentioning that Jimi Hendrix’s Epiphone Wilshire is far from being the most expensive guitar. The place of honor goes to the Martin D-18E of Kurt Cobain, guitarist and vocalist of Nirvana. The instrument was used by Cobain during his final performance on his historic 1993 MTV Unplugged. The buyer of the Martin was Peter Freedman, founder of RODE Microphones, who shelled out an exorbitant $6.1 million.
Regarding the purchase, Freedman commented, “When I heard that this iconic guitar was going to auction, I immediately knew it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to protect it and use it to shine a spotlight on the difficulties that all artists face.”
The Wilshire isn’t Hendrix’s most expensive guitar, either. In 2000, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen bought the Fender Stratocaster that Jimi wowed everyone at Woodstock by having his guitar “sing” the U.S. national anthem. Allen paid 2 million dollars to keep the Fender, which to this day is exhibited at the Museum of Pop Culture, located in the city of Seattle.
Other Hendrix guitars have also hit the market. In 2016, a guitar that Hendrix got for as little as $25 was sold for $200,000 at auction. In 2016, a rare Sunburst-style guitar of Japanese origin was bought for $171,000, four times more than what it was expected to fetch during the auction.