The electric guitar Bob Dylan played at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, when the acoustic troubadour shocked traditionalists with a set of rock and roll, sold for $965,000 on Friday, a world auction record for a guitar.
The 1964 Fender Stratocaster, along with five song lyrics left on a private airplane by the songwriter and his band in the months after the Rhode Island festival, were part of six lots in a special sale of Dylan material in New York.
An absentee bidder bought the Fender Stratocaster with a classic sunburst finish, its original case and black leather guitar strap for nearly double its high pre-sale estimate.
The previous auction record for a guitar was for Eric Clapton’s Fender Stratocaster, which fetched $959,500 in 2004.
Only one of the five lyrics sheets sold for $20,000, bringing the auction total to $985,000. That was a handwritten and typed version of 1965’s I Wanna Be Your Lover.
Friday’s sale came just a day after rocker Bruce Springsteen’s 1974 handwritten draft for Born to Run went for $197,000 in New York.
Rolling Stone magazine has cited Dylan’s performance at the Newport festival as one of the most notable events in music history, according to Christie’s.
Dylan, one of rock’s most influential songwriters, wrote and sang Blowin’ in the Wind, Like a Rolling Stone, Mr Tambourine Man and the 2001 Oscar-winning Things Have Changed. He also used the guitar in 1965 for recording sessions for the album Bringing It All Back Home.