Johnny Marr's guitar collection sells for £3.65 million at Christie's
The 111-lot London sale more than tripled its estimate, led by Marr's Smiths-era 1982 Rickenbacker 330 Jetglo at £358,400.
· Edited by Peter Luha
Credit: artnet News (via source)
Johnny Marr's major Christie’s sale closed in London on September 17 at £3,649,280, more than three times the pre-sale estimate. The auction ran for more than five hours and drew registered bidders from 34 countries, turning a deeply personal guitar archive into one of the year's most visible instrument auctions.
The top result was Marr's 1982 Rickenbacker 330 Jetglo, heard throughout The Smiths' early work and later lent to Noel Gallagher, which sold for £358,400 after more than five minutes of bidding. His 1960 cherry-red Gibson ES-355, bought for him by Sire Records founder Seymour Stein and associated with Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now, realised £204,800.
Christie's offered 111 lots in total, built around guitars and amplifiers spanning Marr's career. Thirty-one lots were designated to benefit The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and the National Autistic Society through donation of their hammer prices.
Credit: YouTube
Credit: artnet News (via source)
Why it matters
The result puts hard market numbers on instruments tied directly to some of British guitar music's most influential recordings, while showing how strongly provenance around a working guitarist's actual tools can drive collector demand.
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Sources
- https://www.christies.com/en/results/2026/06(primary)
- https://readdork.com/news/johnny-marr-guitar-collection-auction-results-11b7d24079
- https://www.irishnews.com/entertainment/johnny-marr-guitar-collection-fetches-almost-4-million-at-auction-PYONRU26BNK6DPPVNW2EIHVQCE/
- https://www.aol.com/articles/johnny-marr-guitars-sell-more-161500000.html
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