Iconic guitar valued at £30,000 put up for auction - The Independent
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A white Fender Stratocaster that Johnny Marr played after leaving The Smiths is expected to sell for as much as £30,000 when it goes under the hammer next month.
The instrument, a Fender American Vintage 1962 Reissue Stratocaster, will be offered for sale by Gardiner Houlgate at their Corsham, Wiltshire, saleroom in December.
The guitar carries an estimate of £20,000 to £30,000.
Marr played it during his time with British rock band The The, which he joined in 1988, a year after his departure from The Smiths.
He used the white Fender on stage during The The Versus The World tour, which took place in 1989 and 1990. The instrument can also be seen in a film of the tour, also called The The Versus The World.
Gardiner Houlgate said a private owner bought the guitar from Marr in 2020; the headstock is signed by Marr and comes with a handwritten postcard describing how it had been used.
Luke Hobbs, auctioneer at Gardiner Houlgate, said: “We're valuing this guitar at around £20,000–£30,000 based on other recent sales of Johnny Marr's instruments.
“Marr’s equipment is very popular with collectors and fans. Now in his sixties, he’s become something of a national treasure in the UK.”
Other guitars owned by Marr fetched almost £4 million at an auction at Christie's in London in September.
The Smiths – completed by singer Morrissey, late bass player Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce – were pioneers of British indie rock in the 1980s.
They released four critically acclaimed studio albums – The Smiths (1984), Meat Is Murder (1985), The Queen Is Dead (1986), and Strangeways, Here We Come (1987) – before breaking up in 1987.
Marr's move to The The in 88 came after a brief period with The Pretenders. He launched his solo career with his 2013 album The Messenger, with all his solo albums charting in the UK Top 10.
Recently, Marr has written and recorded with Gorillaz, Billie Eilish, Franz Ferdinand and Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds.
Despite hopes from fans, both Marr and Morrissey have consistently ruled out any plans for a reunion, with the relationship between the former bandmates ranging from indifferent to acrimonious.
Morrissey wrote an open letter to Marr in 2022 demanding that he stop talking about him in interviews.
“This is not a rant or an hysterical bombast. It is a polite and calmly measured request: Would you please stop mentioning my name in your interviews?” he wrote in a post to his website, Morrissey Central.
“Would you please, instead, discuss your own career, your own unstoppable solo achievements and your own music? If you can, would you please just leave me out of it?”
In 2024, Morrissey then accused Marr of turning down a “lucrative” offer to unite the Smiths. Marr later confirmed that the band received an offer and that he turned it down because the “vibe” wasn’t right.
“We got made an offer really recently, in fact, but yeah, I said no,” he said. “It was a little bit about principles, but I’m not an idiot, I just think the vibe’s not right.”
He added: “It was an eye-watering amount of money, but also, I really like what I’m doing now which makes it a lot easier. I like where I’m at. I still want to write the best song I’ve ever written. I want to be a better performer.”
The auction of his guitar will take place at Gardiner Houlgate in Corsham, Wiltshire, on 8 December.
