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Authenticity is Everything
A Famous Beatles-Signed Guitar—Is it Real? Does One Exist?
By Thorsten Knublauch
Aside from a band-signed Beatles “Sgt. Pepper’s” album gatefold, or a fully-signed “White Album,” the Holy Grail for many Beatles autograph collectors would be a guitar signed by John, Paul, George and Ringo.
But do any genuine, band-signed Beatles guitars exist?
The only one known was destroyed in a mudslide in Malibu, Calif., during the middle of the last decade. But then….
While working on my books “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand” or “Bravo-Beatles-Blitztournee” over the last few years, the story of a fully-signed Hofner Club 40 guitar was often told to me. The Star Club in Hamburg had a “Beat Band Battle” in February 1966. The winning band got a record deal with the Star Club label and, as a special prize, a signed “Beatles guitar” that was once owned by George Harrison. That’s the story.
Wanting to find out more, I came across an article in the German tabloid “Bild-Zeitung” from mid-December 1965. It stated that a delegation of fans and Star Club officials—including the German Number 1 beat band, The Rattles— brought the guitar back from a Beatles concert they attended at Hammersmith Odeon on December 8, 1965. The article includes a photo of the guitar, but unfortunately it is not clear enough to get a good look at the autographs on it.
It also hasn’t been proven that the guitar awarded was really George Harrison’s. George once owned a Club 40 Hofner—–it was recently shown in a 1960-61 photo in Olivia Harrison’s 2011 book, “George Harrison: Living in the Material World”—but stories vary significantly regarding what happened to the guitar over the years. What is agreed upon is that George did not own the guitar during the 1970s or later, based on his own words and that it hasn’t appeared in photos of his guitar collection since then.
The German band The Faces won the Beat Band Battle, and they were photographed with the guitar. Again, though, those photos were all too small to see the signatures clearly. Finally, I was able to find one magazine photo that showed three of the autographs well enough, and I contacted several advanced Beatles autograph collectors and experts and they confirmed my opinion:
The guitar was not signed by the Beatles. It was probably signed by Neil Aspinall.
How sad that the Beatles had no time to sign the guitar themselves!
So there we have it: There are no band-signed Beatles guitars known.
But that doesn’t mean the guitar isn’t valuable. Since Harrison’s Hofner Club 40 hasn’t been in his collection since the 1970s, this could have been his—it would be worth a fortune if it is. That could possibly be proven if the production number is documented, and perhaps by other means.
The guitar is still in the possession of the lead singer of The Faces, Frank Dostal, and stored away in a bank safe. Dostal visited the Beatles backstage during their Hamburg concert on June 26, 1966 to thank them personally for the guitar, and brought them as a gift a now extremely rare Tubon keyboard; shown in photos and personally confirmed by Dostal in an email to me.
I told him recently about the faked signatures - he wasn`t happy....
Tags: 1966, Star Club, band-signed, beat band battle, beatles, frank dostal, guitar, hamburg, hofner club 40, the faces, More…
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on
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Thorsten, thanks for this great piece. Where can we get your book?
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Permalink Reply by Thorsten Knublauch on
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Hi - thanks.
My availiable books are written in German only.
I once had a book about the German 1966 tour in English that is sold out now.
Thorsten
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Permalink Reply by 029r4yc06b4rr on
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I could be way wrong here, and the beatles experts may correct me here with their opinion. But i would bet my bottom dollar their are several Beatles signed guitars out their in private collections. The Beatles were around for quite a while, and logic serves that someone backstage, or a close friend had the sense to ask for an autograph on a guitar. It just seems that its a certainty to me. I could be wrong. But for the Beatles to go through their whole career and only sign maybe 2 known guitars, that seems a stretch to me. But i could be very wrong. I know if i had one though i wouldnt tell people about it or advertise. I would not want that attention.
What do you guys think?
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Chris,
A lot of us hope there are band-signed Beatles guitars that we don't know about, but dealers have been looking for them since the 80s. Only one has been found that we know of, and that one was destroyed in the mudslide in Malibu.
One in decent shape would be worth a few hundred thousand dollars or more, so if anyone has one, they're sitting on a fortune.
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Permalink Reply by sling on
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I have heard of the mudslide story, but a web search of it turns up nothing. What is the story. Was the destroyed guitar found?
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Here's what I know about the destroyed Beatles guitar. It was an acoustic, signed by the Beatles, a couple of Stones, and maybe a couple of other artists. I heard that Ed Kosinski (now a partner in Gotta Have It) sold it in the late 1990s for about $60,000. The owner had it in his house in Malibu, which was destroyed in a mudslide. I don't know if it was found, what condition it was in, or anything. For safety reasons, often after mudslides they just bring in earth moving equipment and clear things away without ever letting anybody pore through the debris. The ground above it is almost always unstable, so it's too dangerous.
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Permalink Reply by Josh Board on
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Chris nailed it.
Here's a great story I'm going tototally butcher (no Butcher album ref. intended). Imet an older guy
who worked in the movie industry.He was kind of crazy. Toldme how on the ses of movies he'lll alwys keep a few items (props andthings...sometimes autographed scripts). On thesetof a Lester Beatles film....he brought a guitar in that they all sgned. He told mme it's in a storage unit or locked upsomewhere. And...he's not the kind of person tht lies. Stories he told me chcked out and sounded believable. Sooooooo...others probably have similar stories
Oh....here'sanother one. At aparty in La Jolla, in a mnsion.... Iwas told by one guest that another had two signed Beatles records on thewall. His mother worked at their record label. Stuff is out there....in private collections
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I sure hope so, Josh. I expect that we might double or more the number of albums Beatles signed albums known over the years. Mostly "Please Please Me" and "With the Beatles", but it would be great to find more of the real rarities. And I hope a band-signed guitar or two shows up. I never thought that it might come out of the California movie industry.
So do you know how to find the old guy? He could live out his days in style if he has the real deal.
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The problem is: was it "technically" possible to get a pen that stays on a guitar? It was difficult to even sign a front LP cover at the time.
Usual was to get an autograph album signed, rare were albums and who at the time thought about an instrument??
thorsten
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Permalink Reply by roger epperson on
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Yes you could get the ink to stick to guitars then because the varnish they used was not nitrocellulose like they use now. It was softer and would take the ink but also I agree that who would have thought back then to get a guitar signed? There was little value to music autographs pre-1980 so why ruin a guitar? The first auction of pop autographs was 1981 and there it all began....
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It has been brought to my attention that some people did not understand my statement above. Let me clarify it for those not on this site that happen to look here for an education.
The varnish that was used in the 60's is not the same as that of the kinds used now. Due to improvements in technology through the years they have found better, stronger, faster and harder drying varnishes. They also use many more layers of varnish (some using a nitrocellulose based varnish) on the guitars they make now for various reasons. Too much varnish can make a guitar very heavy and affect it's tone. Please note that not all guitar makers use the same varnish to coat their guitars some used none at all. The higher end guitars like Fender and Gibson had some of the nicest varnishes used at the time.
The question above; "was it "technically" possible to get a pen that stays on a guitar?" was asked again I would answer that yes. Different guitars would take the ink better then others but if you dug in hard enough most of the early guitars would take some ink in my opinion. I am a vintage guitar collector and restorer. I have guitars that date from the 1930's til the late 2000's including many early Gibsons, Fenders, Eko, Framus and Teisco Del Ray guitars. I know quite a bit about vintage guitars and how they were made.
Hope that clears up any confusion.
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