Julien’s Auctions announced today at a press conference from The Beatles Story in Liverpool that George Harrison’s Futurama guitar will headline a music memorabilia auction.
One of the Beatle legend’s most significant and most played guitars in all of Fab 4 history, will headline PLAYED, WORN AND TORN II, the industry-leading music memorabilia auction house’s blockbuster three day event taking place Wednesday, November 20th, Thursday, November 21st and Friday, November 22nd live at The Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum at The Historic Municipal Auditorium in Nashville, TN and online here.
Considered one of the holy grails of historic Beatles guitars, this seminal guitar of early Beatlemania history is expected to exceed its estimate of $600,000-$800,000 USD £485,000- £647,000 GBP and make history once again this November on the auction stage.
George Harrison’s one and only Futurama is one of the two most important guitars used by Harrison with The Beatles. A c.1958 Resonet Futurama solid body electric guitar, serial #1126, in a sunburst finish, this Futurama was George Harrison’s most-played guitar in the early days of The Beatles, used on over 324 Beatle performances including the band’s early Cavern Club shows and on their legendary Hamburg tour in 1960-1961 in addition to being used on The Beatles’ first official recordings for Polydor from 1959-1961.
In 1959, George Harrison purchased this Futurama guitar at Hessy’s music store in Liverpool. This instrument was the closest that most guitarists in Britain at the time could get to that most desired of electric guitars, the US made Fender Stratocaster with The Beatles and other British guitarists ogling the Strat of their idol, Buddy Holly. At the time, a UK government embargo on foreign imports had barred the import of U.S. made instruments hence, budding British musicians had to rely on European-made guitars such as The Grazioso, a.k.a. Futurama guitar made by an instrument manufacturer based in Czechoslovakia.
Harrison later commented that: “If I’d had my way, the Strat would have been my first guitar. I’d seen Buddy Holly’s Strat … on the Chirping Crickets cover, and tried to find one, but in Liverpool, in those days, the only thing I could find resembling a Strat was a Futurama…It was very difficult to play, had an action about half an inch off the fingerboard, but nevertheless it did look kind of futuristic.”
Harrison admitted in a 1987 issue of Guitar Player magazine, that his Futurama was “a dog” to play. He added, “it had a great sound though, and a real good way of switching in the three pickups and all the combinations.”
George Harrison played the guitar in the band’s audition for famous British manager and impresario Larry Parnes which landed them a tour as the backing band for singer Johnny Gentle. Soon after, Liverpool promoter Allan Williams made The Silver Beetles (their name at that time) a fateful offer to play in Hamburg, Germany. The Futurama guitar was Harrison’s sole electric guitar during their iconic three-month residency in Hamburg clubs, Indra and the Kaiserkeller. In total, The Beatles performed 106 six nights during their first trip to Hamburg and George Harrison used his trusty Futurama guitar for all of these Beatle performances.
The Beatles played a triumphant homecoming in Liverpool’s Litherland Town Hall on December 27th 1960, a February ’61 lunchtime show and subsequent performances at The Cavern Club, and on April 1, 1961 they returned to Germany with a 92-night residency at the Top Ten Club in Hamburg with British star Tony Sheridan.
“George Harrison’s Futurama guitar was The Beatles’ north star and one of his most loved instruments in his collection of legendary and prized guitars,” said Martin Nolan, Executive Director/Co-Founder of Julien’s Auctions. “This mythic guitar aptly named Futurama was played during the early Beatles’ countless ground breaking performances from their halcyon nights at the Cavern Club in Liverpool to their famous Hamburg Days where they honed their sound and style and the future of Beatlemania literally took off.”
Harrison’s Futurama guitar can be heard on “Ain’t She Sweet” and “Cry For A Shadow,” which was later released on a single by Polydor and officially released by The Beatles on Anthology 1 in 1995. In 1964, George Harrison donated the Futurama guitar to Beat Instrumental Magazine as a competition prize for a contest. The winner of the guitar was AJ Thompson of Saltdean, Sussex who decided to take the cash prize rather than the guitar which then stayed with the Beat Instrumental magazine editor Sean O’Mahony.
Also being offered is a photographic print of The Beatles taken by the photographer Astrid Kirchherr in November 1960 at Heiligengeistfeld Square in Hamburg, Germany as part of the Beatles’ first photo session featuring the Futurama guitar. The image shows (from left to right) Pete Best, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Stuart Sutcliffe standing next to a Hugo Haase railway wagon in a funfair.
Julien’s Auctions has broken world records with the sale of Beatles memorabilia, most recently with John Lennon’s lost hootenanny guitar which sold for an unprecedented $2.9 million, making it the most expensive Beatles guitar to ever sell at auction, as well as a previous John Lennon acoustic guitar, which sold for a record $2.4 million, Ringo Starr’s Ludwig drum kit, which sold for a record $2.2 million, The Ludwig Beatles Ed Sullivan Show drumhead, which sold for a record price of $2.1 million, and The Beatles White Album, owned by Ringo Starr, that sold for $790,000.
An exhibition of George Harrison’s Futurama guitar will be on display in The Beatles Story in Liverpool from Thursday, October 3rd until Thursday, October 17th before making other stops in Europe until its appearance on the auction stage at Nashville’s premier attraction The Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum at The Historic Municipal Auditorium in November.
A recording of the live stream of this morning’s press conference can be viewed HERE.
