Credit: Polly SamsonPink Floyd‘s David Gilmour will be putting the bulk of his substantial guitar collection up for sale at a June 20 auction at Christie’s in New York City.
More than 120 instruments belonging to Gilmour will be available for purchase at the sale, including his famous 1969 black Fender Stratocaster, known simply as “The Black Strat.”
The 72-year-old Rock & Roll Hall of Famer purchased The Black Strat in 1970 at Manny’s Music in New York, and used it throughout his tenure with Pink Floyd, as well as for his recent solo albums. The guitar is expected to fetch between $100,000 and $150,000.
“Everything has got to go,” David jokes in a new phone interview with Rolling Stone. “It’s the spring sale.”
“These guitars have been very good to me,” he adds. “They’re my friends. They have given me lots of music. I just think it’s time that they went off and served someone else…And of course the money that they will raise will do an enormous amount of good in the world, and that is my intention.”
Money raised by the auction will help fund Gilmour’s charitable foundation, which addresses issues of “famine relief, homelessness and displacement of people throughout the world.”
Among the many other instruments David is auctioning: a Martin 12-string acoustic he used to write the Pink Floyd classic “Wish You Were Here,” a 1954 white Fender Stratocaster with the serial number #0001 he played while recording “Another Brick in the Wall (Parts Two and Three),” and an Ovation six-string acoustic he uses to play “Comfortably Numb” at nearly every show where he’s performed the song.
Gilmour says he’s only holding on to about 20 of the guitars he owns.
For more information about the auction, visit Christies.com.
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