AUCTION: Nirvana, Beatles and Stones – Oh My!

It’ll be like having your own Hard Rock… in your house!

Instruments and memorabilia from Kurt Cobain, The Beatles, Mick Jagger, Axl Rose and Bruce Springsteen are up for bids next month.

Julien’s Auctions’ Music Icons sale takes place on May 20th and 21st at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York and online at JuliensAuctions.com. Included in the sale are:

• Kurt Cobain’s Fender Competition Mustang electric guitar, which he played in the 1991 video for Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” A portion of the proceeds from the sale will go toward supporting the mental health charity Kicking the Stigma, which was founded by Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay, who is a huge music memorabilia collector. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. It’s conservatively estimated to sell for between $600,000 and $800,000.
• The original drum kit used in The Quarry Men, the pre-Beatles group formed by John Lennon. The John Grey and Sons Ltd. white finish “Broadway” drum kit purchased in Liverpool in 1956 by Colin Hanton, the drummer of The Quarry Men from 1956 until 1959. Hanton played this kit on the band’s first professional recording with John, Paul McCartney and George Harrison for the song “In Spite of All the Danger,” as well as a cover of Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day.” – both of these recordings were included on The Beatles’ Anthology 1. It’s estimated at $400,000 to $600,000.

• Eddie Van Halen’s Charvel EVH Art Series electric guitar, hand-striped and played on stage by him. It’s signed and inscribed in black sharpie: “Des Moines IA. / 2.6.08 / Eddie Van Halen / Van Halen 2008,” and comes with a photograph of him playing it on stage with Van Halen at the Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa on February 6th, 2008.

• A spiral-bound Mead “Academie Sketch Diary” notebook, containing handwritten lyrics and other personal notes by Axl Rose. A note written in red ink reads: “All of our rock heroes have fallen / All of our idols have gone / All of our gods are human / I see them now / Hard to save their dignity / Now they look so pathetic / Who are we to fool ourselves / As if we could fill their shoes / We hope to redefine standards of artistic quality / *More of less* / A fulcrum / A rule of thumb / Are you getting more of less quality (Honesty) (Sincerity) / From a record than GN’R’s appetite / -GN’R- / The Pivot Point / The AXLE! Ha Ha Ha.”

• A single sheet of handwritten lyrics to “Glory Road” by Bruce Springsteen written during the Born to Run period from late 1973 to early 1975. The song was later renamed “Born to Run,” sharing some of the same lyrics, such as “Tramps like us, Baby we were born to run.”

• An extremely rare low-numbered mono vinyl pressing of The Beatles’ 1968 White Album (PMC 7067, Number 0000002). While mono was the standard for the band’s career, by 1968 it mostly had been phased out in favor of stereo mixing, which is why the mono version of this album –their final album — was not readily available in the United States. In 2015, Ringo Starr’s personal copy of the White Album (Number 0000001) sold for $790,000 at Julien’s Auctions, making this the second-lowest number to be auctioned.

• A heavy custom-made chain mail jacket with a silver satin collar and shoulder pads worn by Mick Jagger while performing live on stage with The Rolling Stones in the United States.