HARRISON FOR SALE

www.paulfrasercollectibles.com
Weekly Collecting News: Ich bin ein Hamburger 
Paul Fraser
Saturday 27 April 2019

Ich bin ein Hamburger 

In 1960, before the Beatles became chart sensations, they spent a formative 18-month stretch in Hamburg.

The city was a wild place – still is – but it was particularly chaotic in those post-war years.


This is a crucial piece of the Beatles story

The band played amphetamine-fuelled shows to drunken crowds along the Reeperbahn until the early hours of the morning…

Mixed with racketeers and prostitutes…

Got into scrapes with vicious bouncers…  

John Lennon said of the experience: "I might have been born in Liverpool – but I grew up in Hamburg".

On June 12, Bonhams will sell the Futurama guitar George Harrison used there.

You’ll see it in many of the photographs taken of him onstage.

Harrison bought it in Liverpool in 1959. At the time it was all he could afford. He switched to a higher quality Rickenbacker when he returned to the UK.



In 1964, Harrison gave the guitar away as a competition prize for Beat Instrumental Magazine.

When the winner chose a cash prize, the magazine’s editor Sean O’Mahoney held on to it.

It remained in his collection until his death.

The estimate is £200,000-300,000 ($258,206-387,309).

But when you compare it to other Beatles guitars at auction, those figures look extremely conservative.

º John Lennon’s Gibson J-160E sold for $2.4m in 2015
º Paul McCartney’s first guitar (a Rex acoustic) made $633,440 in 2006
º And Harrison’s 1962 Rickenbacker 425 realised $610,000 in 2014

With those sums in mind, I can’t see this going for less than £500,000 ($645,515).

Click here for a wonderful piece of Beatles memorabilia.