Beatles instruments, Kerouac’s first draft and the most expensive guitar in history: The auction that broke up one of the largest pop culture collections in history

“Lot after lot, we felt like we were making history,” said Julien Pradels, regional president of Christie’s auction house in the Americas, after the last bids for billionaire Jim Irsay’s vast pop culture collection on March 12. This is no exaggeration, and not just because of the $84.1 million raised by the 44 lots — 373% above what had been expected; or the 23 record prices, including five for what have become the most expensive guitars in history.

The list of items auctioned between March 3 and March 17 in New York was of to interest music aficionados around the world, particularly Beatles fans: from the Victorian Broadwood Upright piano used by John Lennon to compose A Day in the Life and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds which fetched $3,247,000 to the drum head that Ringo Starr played on Ed Sullivan’s legendary show on February 9, 1964 which went for $2,881,000.

The Liverpool band dominated the sale, but the highest price went to the black Fender Stratocaster that belonged to Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, fetching $14.55 million, which became the most expensive guitar in history at the end of a 21-minute bid. The first four auctions concluded on March 17, with a fifth to be held in July. When the process is complete, one of the world’s largest collections from the golden age of rock will be scattered, having been on show for the last time at Christie’s headquarters in New York.

Jim Irsay was a U.S. Billionaire who died last June at the age of 65. Besides being heir to a billionaire fortune, he was also an eccentric amateur musician, a recovering alcoholic and addict who had managed to wean himself off prescription drugs. He was known, above all, for being the owner of the National Football League’s Indianapolis Colts. But he was also a compulsive collector. From 1997 onwards, he built up what became known as The Jim Irsay Collection, focused on the most famous guitars from the rock era, although it also included historical manuscripts, film and sports memorabilia.

From 2021, the collection turned into a traveling exhibition which toured the United States accompanied by concerts from figures such as John Fogerty, the soul of the Creedence Clearwater Revival, together with the Jim Irsay Band, of course. The exhibition-cum-concerts were always free. When asked by Forbes in 2022 why he didn’t charge, he replied, “Why? They have kids and car payments. I’ve been so blessed and it’s part of giving back. I do it for them.”

Now with Irsay gone, his heirs have decided to monetize his passion, and commissioned Christie’s to auction off his legacy. Part of the proceeds, they say, will go to charitable causes.

The breakup date for the collection is March 17. Christie’s opts to be upbeat about it being sold off, stating that the sale offers “collectors the rarest of opportunities to become the next custodians of objects that have inspired generations and continue to shine as beacons of our shared creative legacy.”

Irsay rose to fame as a collector in 2001, when he acquired the 120ft scroll on which Jack Kerouac typed the first draft of On the Road, for which he paid the equivalent of $3.2 million. On March 12, it went under the hammer for $12,135,000, making it the most expensive manuscript to date.

But Irsay’s true passion lay in music, particularly rock and, above all, the Beatles — especially John Lennon. “He was one of the first guys ever to use a platform of his immense talent and his art to change the world, and that almost became more important to John than anything else,” Irsay said on the NFL website.

The most expensive Beatles-related lot was the Broadwood piano used by Lennon to compose for the group’s eighth studio album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). Also under the hammer were his Rickenbacker and Gretsch guitars, used between 1964 and 1966.

Two of George Harrison’s guitars were also sold off, one of them, the Gibson SG which he played between 1966 and 1968 on songs such as Paperback Writer and Lady Madonna.

And there was the left-handed Yamaha BB1200 bass, which McCartney used on the last Wings album and during his solo era until 1984. McCartney gave it to a charity auction in 2021, which was a curious move as he himself was a collector and had objects such as the Strawberry Fields Forever keyboard and the double bass that Bill Black played with Elvis. That year it sold for $471,900. On March 17, it fetched just $228,600.

The bidding was higher for the lyrics of Hey Jude handwritten by McCartney, which fetched $1.01 million. Irsay bought it in 2020 for $910,000. Among the smaller lots, Ringo’s pinky finger ring fetched $120,650. The drummer owes his nickname to his love of rings, and this one features on the cover of the band’s first album, Please Please Me, and on the back cover of the fifth, Help!. Ringo’s Ludwig drum kit fetched $2.3 million. It was his first Ludwig kit, which he used between May 1963 and February 1964.

“This collection has been a revelation to me: I wasn’t aware that any one person had acquired so much high-end Beatles material,” Mark Lewisohn, an English historian, biographer and Beatles authority, who is currently working on The Beatles: All These Years, said in a statement to Christie’s. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an impressive gathering of Beatles instruments in one place as I did when I viewed highlights from the Jim Irsay Collection at Christie’s in London. It was like going around a brilliant Beatles museum.”

During the auction, many other famous rock names were evident: The Grateful Dead’s frontman Jerry Garcia’s “Tiger” guitar fetched $11.56 million. “When Tiger became available, I looked at it like an investment, no matter the cost. I’m only interested in the best of the best,” Irsay told Forbes.

Also on sale was the 1976 Gibson Explorer Reissue that The Edge (U2) used as a backup guitar during The Joshua Tree tour in 1987 and which fetched $635,000. A sum of $508,000 was forked out for the Steinway piano that Elton John played during more than 20 years of concerts. The piano was on stage at Madison Square Garden on Thanksgiving Day 1974, a historic concert due to the fact that Lennon was invited to join Elton for what would be the former Beatle’s last performance.

A sea of guitars

Christie’s also sold a trumpet belonging to Miles Davis ($1.6 million), a Gibson J-45 acoustic belonging to Janis Joplin ($381,000); Eric Clapton’s psychedelic Gibson SG, known as “The Fool” ($3 million), and the Martin 000-42 he used in his 1992 Unplugged concert ($4.1 million), which became the world’s top-selling live album; also going under the hammer was one of Prince’s Yellow Cloud guitars made in 1993 which fetched $635,000; and the Fender Mustang that Kurt Cobain used in the video for Smells Like Teen Spirit which sold for $6,907,000.

Cobain has an auction history with David Gilmour. It began in 2019, when Gilmour put his famous Black Strat — which he played between 1970 and 1979 — up for auction along with another 100 guitars to raise money for an environmental law firm. Jim Irsay bought it for $3.97 million, which was a record at that time.

A year later, Cobain’s acoustic Martin D-18E, which was played in the mythical 1993 Unplugged concert, became the most expensive guitar ever auctioned after being sold in Beverly Hills for $7.02 million. Also sold this March was the Martin D-35 with which Gilmour recorded Wish You Were Here in 1975 ($2.39 million).

The stack of items in the collection takes your breath away: in addition to the instruments, there’s the handwritten lyrics of Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin, bought by Irsay in 2020 and sold for $2,515,000. Irsay was also the owner of the Stratocaster with which Dylan performed at the controversial Newport festival in 1965.

According to Irsay, Dylan, a Nobel laureate, has been the only person capable of rivaling Lennon as a composer. “Dylan [is] the great wordsmith, the Shakespeare of our times. And I have to put Bob No.1 there. But just in terms of songwriting, [Lennon’s] a musician’s musician... He is put up there in a separate category,” he told the NFL website.

The so-called Spiritual Letter that Steve Jobs wrote the day before his 19th birthday went for $444,500. “He was one of my mentors,” Irsay told Forbes. “Not just in business, but how he approached everything in life. He was just brilliant. He understood Apple’s marketing campaign wasn’t selling computers, he was selling a lifestyle.” Sylvester Stallone’s handwritten notebook for Rocky (1976) was sold for $508,000; James Brown’s stage cape went for $152,400; and the Chevrolet Caprice Convertible Red Shark that appears in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) fetched $254,000.

The result of an extremely expensive hobby has been blown apart. “As a very wealthy individual, Jim Irsay had the means to collect so many iconic objects, which most of us can only dream of,” says Amelia Walker, who is specialist head of the Private & Iconic Collections at Christie’s. “But I think he was genuinely just a really nice guy who loved guitars, loved music, and felt a responsibility to look after these things and steward them onto their next home. I think he was aware that you can’t be buried with these things — you are but the temporary custodian of them.”

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