By Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – When David Gilmour announced that he was to auction off 127 of his most famous guitars, there was no doubting the star of the show.
His fabled Black Strat is, quite simply, one of the most iconic electric guitars in history, and its legendary status was confirmed when it went under the hammer at Christie’s in New York on Thursday, June 20th.
The instrument he used on “The Dark Side Of The Moon”, “Wish You Were Here”, “Animals”, and “The Wall”, carried an estimate of US$100,000 – US$150,000, but it broke a new world record for a guitar at auction, selling for an incredible $3,975,000.
The auction of all 127 guitars at Christie’s in New York fetched a total of $21,490,750.
“Many of the guitars in this sale are guitars that have given me a tune, so a lot of them have earned their keep, you might say,” the Pink Floyd lead singer said in a film made with the auction house.
“These guitars have given so much to me, and it’s time for them to move on to other people who hopefully will find joy, and perhaps create something new,” Gilmour added.
As Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, said in a speech earlier this year: “Either we choose to go on as a civilization, or we don’t. The choice is that simple and I hope that the sale of these guitars will help ClientEarth in their cause to use the law to bring about real change.”
