Pink Floyd guitar 'Black Strat' sells at auction for record $14.6 mln

NEW YORK

A guitar used by Pink Floyd's David Gilmour on some of the British progressive rock band's best-loved albums has sold for a record $14.6 million, auction house Christie's said.

The price of the Fender Stratocaster nicknamed "Black Strat" far surpassed that of the previous record holder, a guitar owned by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain that sold for $6 million in 2020.

Gilmour played Black Strat on every Pink Floyd album between 1970 and 1983, including "Dark Side of the Moon," "Wish You Were Here," "Animals" and "The Wall."

The guitar was first purchased by Irsay at Christie's in June 2019 for nearly $4 million, according to the auction webiste. At the time, Gilmour opened up Rolling Stone about selling the guitar.

“These guitars have been very good to me,” he said. “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.”

“For me, I can let go of it. It’s going to bring a lot of people to have a look at this sale, and it’s going to do that job. It’s a lovely guitar," he continued. "It has been on pretty much all the Pink Floyd albums through the Seventies… it’s on so much stuff, but Fender have made replica ones that they sell, and I have two or three of those that are absolutely perfect. One of those might be my future guitar of choice or even, horror of horror, maybe I’ll even change the color.”

Christie's did not provide the name of the buyer, who prevailed after 21 minutes of bidding.

The auction on March 11 in New York featured rock memorabilia from the collection of Jim Irsay, the former owner of the Indianapolis Colts NFL team, who died in 2025.

Other guitars sold at the auction included a custom-made instrument that belonged to Jerry Garcia, co-founder of psychedelic rockers the Grateful Dead, which sold for $11.6 million, Christie's said.

A blue Fender Mustang belonging to Cobain that featured in the music video of Nirvana's 1990s grunge anthem "Smells Like Teen Spirit" sold for $6.9 million.

According to Christie's website, the 44 items in the collection made a total of $84 million.