John Lennon’s lost Help! Framus 12-string has become one of the most expensive guitars to ever sell at auction
John Lennon’s Framus Hootenanny acoustic guitar, which was found in an attic after disappearing for 50 years, has become one of the most expensive guitars ever sold at auction.
The discovery of the 12-string guitar – famed for featuring on the Help! recording sessions in the ‘60s – was announced last month at an unveiling in London hosted by auctioneers, Julien's Auctions.
At the time, Julien’s claimed the vintage Framus could set a new world record for a guitar to be sold under the hammer, potentially surpassing Kurt Cobain’s Martin D-18e, which sold for over $6,000,000 in 2020.
The Framus didn’t quite reach those heights, but it did comfortably make it onto the list, having eventually sold after 20 bids for a whopping $2,857,000.
That figure makes the legendary Beatles instrument the fifth most expensive guitar to have sold at auction, usurping the $2.7 million ‘Reach Out to Asia’ Stratocaster and coming in behind none other than Eddie Van Halen’s Hot For Teacher Kramer, which went for $3,932,000 last year.
Notably, it also becomes the most expensive Beatles guitar to go under the hammer – a mantle previously held by John Lennon’s $2.4 million Gibson J-160E.
Though the Framus was originally set a highly conservative upper estimate of $800,000, everyone who had an eye on the sale knew it would fetch far more when the first day of the auction rolled around.
As well as featuring on Help!, the Framus can also be seen in the Beatles film of the same name, and was used for the band’s performance of You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away. It was also said to have been used on Girl, as well as the rhythm track for Norwegian Wood.
It was used extensively by most members of the Beatles during this decade – Lennon and George Harrison were both pictured playing the guitar – and was recently held by Ringo Starr, after Julien’s reintroduced the Beatle with one of the band’s most influential acoustics.
As the tale goes, Lennon once gifted the Framus to Gordon Waller of Peter & Gordon, who in turn later gave the guitar to its pre-auction owners. For the past decades, it has laid unplayed, and was left in hibernation until a family, who were moving homes, stumbled upon it in their attic.
Julien’s was called to the scene, and the guitar was quickly identified as the Help! acoustic.
Luckily, it had remained in top condition, and was accompanied by its original Maton case – which had to be salvaged from a skip during a “cold, dark, wet March evening”, having originally been thrown out.
The guitar itself is a 5/024/12 flattop Hootenanny model, and features a mahogany neck and rosewood fingerboard, as well as a Trapeze tailpiece and rosewood bridge.
“This guitar happens to be one of the most important Beatles guitars and instruments ever to come to the auction block,” said Darren Julien at the unveiling. “It’s so important, so historic. We thought this guitar was gone – we thought it was lost forever.”
Find out more at Julien’s Auctions.
Julien's will host the second and final day of its mammoth Music Icons auction tomorrow (May 30). The exhibition includes a handful of other iconic guitars, including Prince's Cloud 3, which is expected to sell for $600,000.
