Jon Englund
Downsizing? Determined to get rid of stuff you no longer need? Cleaning out a home or an estate? Stop! Know Before You Throw!
As summer winds down, so, too, does this series on the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love. Over the past few months, we’ve been reminiscing about that fabled time in our history when counterculture came to a head in California.
Part One of this series covered the recorded music of the era and the collectability and value of some of those old vinyl records. Last month was devoted to the colorful ephemera, the psychedelic concert posters advertising the top bands and their next gigs.
And with this month’s topic wrapping up our series, it deserves to go out with a bang (or a smash), or up in flames, just like the guitars of Pete Townshend of the Who, and Jimi Hendrix. Yes, you guessed it. This month’s topic is the iconic symbol of Rock and Roll, the electric guitar.
Pete Townshend was notorious for smashing his guitars with frequency. Jimi Hendrix burned his first guitar at a 1967 London performance as a warm-up feature for the June 18, 1967 performance of Wild Thing at the Monterey Pops Festival. In fact, he burned and smashed his guitar that night.
While there’s not a lot one can do with a broken and burned guitar, some of those famously destroyed instruments have sold for a small fortune. The Hendrix guitar that got torched in Monterey reportedly sold for $380,000 in 2012.
One of the most expensive guitars ever sold was the 1968 Stratocaster, played by Hendrix at Woodstock. Paul Allen, of Microsoft, bought the guitar for $2 million, and it now resides in the Experience Music Project in Hendrix’s hometown of Seattle.
While few of us will ever have our own experience with one of those ultra-famous guitars, we may have an older Fender or Gibson guitar stashed away in our closet collecting dust. At last check, a mid-1960s Fender Stratocaster guitar could be worth $10,000 or so. What’s in your closet?
Jon Englund has more than 25 years of experience in appraising and liquidating personal property, jewelry, art, collectibles, antiques, furniture, printed items and more. A Midwest transplant, Jon trained at New York University in appraisal studies.
For more information, call (480) 699-1567. You also can send an email to Jon@KnowBeforeYouThrow.INFO.