Venerable Fender® Stratocaster® Guitar Tops the Charts Again!!
(Fender | Posted 2004-07-13)
Eric Clapton’s “Blackie” Fetches Nearly $1 Million, Most Ever Paid for a Guitar. In the wake of the auction at the James Christie salesroom at Rockefeller Center to benefit Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Centre, guitar collectors have shown, once again, that the Fender® Stratocaster® guitar is the most valued instrument in rock ‘n’ roll history.
Fetching nearly $1 million, Clapton’s renowned Fender Stratocaster, known to many as “Blackie” and which served as Clapton's sole stage and studio guitar from 1970 till 1985, set the mark for the most money ever paid for an electric guitar. Coming in second was Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Lenny”, the Fender Stratocaster guitar that Vaughan played extensively until his untimely death in 1990, which brought in $623,500, the second highest price ever paid for a Fender Stratocaster guitar at auction.
Additionally, the very first Fender Eric Clapton Signature model Stratocaster guitar that was built in the Fender Custom Shop and was modeled after “Blackie”, was sold for $231,500. This guitar was extensively used by Clapton from 1990 onwards.
“What’s cool is that it’s not just the vintage instruments that are bringing in the money,” said Ritchie Fliegler, Senior Vice President of Market Development for Fender. “A number of the guitars that were sold—the gold leaf Stratocaster guitar, the SRV ‘Number One’ and the Crash guitar—are brand new guitars that, together, raised more than $820.000.”
Adds Fliegler, “We’re proud to say that the collectors also know the true value of a Fender Stratocaster guitar, whether old or new, and they were on hand to buy them and to support a wonderful cause.”
The sale was 100 percent sold, with more than 85 instruments totaling $7,438,624, easily eclipsing the $5 million result achieved for the first Eric Clapton sale organized by Christie's in 1999. Proceeds of the sale will benefit Crossroads Centre in Antigua, an addiction treatment center established by Eric Clapton in 1998.
For more information on the Crossroads Centre, click here.
