A first look at an exhibit of the guitars that showcase Jeff Beck’s life in music has been revealed as the instruments go on sale for hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Auction house Christie’s is putting more than 130 guitars, which the guitarist played throughout his almost six-decades-long career, from joining The Yardbirds in March 1965, to his last tour in 2022, on sale this month.
The Jeff Beck: The Guitar Collection includes his recognisable 1954 Oxblood Gibson Les Paul, which is estimated to make up to £500,000, and was seen on the cover of his 1975 solo album Blow By Blow as well as being used in the supergroup Beck, Bogert And Appice, and at a 1973 appearance with David Bowie.
Beck died aged 78 in January 2023, following a career which saw him earn eight Grammy awards, and work with a host of famous names including Ozzy Osbourne and Sir Mick Jagger.
Amelia Walker, director of Christie’s and specialist head of the private and iconic collections department, told the PA news agency that Beck is “regarded as one of the greatest rock guitarists of all time”.
She added: “This (collection) is a really important chronology of Jeff’s life and career in music, from one of the earliest guitars we have in the collection the Yardburst (Gibson Les Paul guitar), which he bought in 1966 when he was in The Yardbirds and which he played for the next sort of seven or eight years, both in The Yardbirds with the first Jeff Beck Group, with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood, and then with the second Jeff Beck Group.
“It was a guitar that was played not only by him, but also by Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix on stage. So that in itself makes it a unique piece of music history.
“And then each guitar tells its own story of his career… each guitar bears the scars of his playing, he played these guitars hard, he wasn’t a collector, these were his tools.
“They were his means of communicating his emotions and his music to the world.”
The guitar, which was used on the first Jeff Beck Group album Truth along with recording albums with The Yardbirds, is up for sale with an estimate of between £40,000 to £60,000.
Ms Walker also said that Christie’s auctioneers are “honoured” to be doing the sale, and called it “really important”.
There is also a Tele-Gib custom guitar put together by pickup designer Seymour Duncan for Beck in 1973, which combines a Fender Telecaster body and neck with a pair of Gibson PAF humbucking pickups removed from a Flying V, which is expected to fetch up to £150,000.
Other guitars include a 1954 Sunburst Fender Stratocaster, used on the Jeff Beck Group album Beck-Ola, given to him by Small Faces frontman Steve Marriott, a Pink Jackson Soloist used to record with the likes of Tina Turner, and a white Fender Stratocaster used to record four studio LPs.
Another, a Duesenberg guitar, with a £4,000 and £6,000 estimate, bears the signature of Pirates Of The Caribbean film series actor Johnny Depp, who the guitarist worked with on a collaborative album.
The full collection is on public view in the pre-sale exhibition at Christie’s headquarters in London, from January 15 to 22.
The auction takes place on January 22.
