When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.<\/i><\/p>\n Credit: Peter Pakvis\/Redferns<\/p>\n Johnny Marr\u2019s cleaning out his closet and the world\u2019s wealthiest music fans are warming up their credit cards for yet another hot-ticket celebrity guitar auction<\/a>. Why does this keep happening? Answering that very question through the medium of \u2013 as one fan describes it \u2013 \u201ca snarky faux interview\u201d\u2026 it\u2019s Fret Buzz!<\/p>\n Lend us a dollar \u2013 Johnny Marr is auctioning his guitar collection in September.<\/strong><\/p>\n My pleasure. So you\u2019re good for the other $199,000?<\/p>\n Excuse me?<\/strong><\/p>\n As befits an indie-guitar god, Johnny\u2019s instruments are quite expensive. For instance, there\u2019s a $200,000 estimate for his fabled 1960 ES-355.<\/p>\n Hmmm. Anything in my budget?<\/strong><\/p>\n How about $106,000 for the \u201982 Rickenbacker 330 Jetglo played on This Charming Man?<\/p>\n Heaven knows I\u2019m miserable now.<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, we told you they\u2019re expensive. Basically, if you put your hand in the air anywhere near Christie\u2019s auction house in London, you\u2019ll accidentally default on your mortgage for a road-soiled wah pedal.<\/p>\n Has Johnny fallen on hard times? <\/strong><\/p>\n Don\u2019t worry about Johnny. He\u2019s doing very nicely. He\u2019s just offloading a few dozen guitars because he \u201cdidn\u2019t like the idea of my studio space becoming a museum\u201d.<\/p>\n First-world problems\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Anyway, Johnny is famously a charming man, and the proceeds will go to various charities, including the Guide Dogs For The Blind Association.<\/p>\n Wow. Those guide dogs are going to be loaded. Will they all get gold collars?<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s not how animal charities work.<\/p>\n Credit: Christie’s<\/p>\n How did this auction craze start, anyway?<\/strong><\/p>\n Back in 1999, Eric Clapton sold his first batch, including the \u201957 Brownie Strat. Since then, it\u2019s gone gangbusters. In March, David Gilmour\u2019s Black Strat regained the title of World\u2019s Most Expensive Guitar<\/a>, fetching $14.6m.<\/p>\n But aren\u2019t these just ordinary production guitars that happened to be played by talented people?<\/strong><\/p>\n Johnny reckons there\u2019s more to it: \u201cI once asked this acupuncturist if guitars had chi \u2013 a life force. He said, \u2018Yeah, your guitars have got chi in.\u2019 I was like, \u2018I knew it!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Why don\u2019t manufacturers just put in the chi at the factory?<\/strong><\/p>\n Chi doesn\u2019t work like that. It\u2019s more of a spiritual thing. It\u2019s under your fingernails.<\/p>\n Who has $14.6m, anyway?<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh, all sorts of people. Tech bros. Russian princes. Centuries-old dynasties of European vampires. Regular folks, y\u2019know?<\/p>\n Are you being sarcastic?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah. People get annoyed by celebrity guitar auctions. But also excited. And jealous too. It\u2019s hard to read the room sometimes.<\/p>\n David Gilmour’s Black Strat \u2013 aka the world’s most expensive guitar. | Credit: Future\/Joby Sessions<\/p>\n Why the resentment?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s the notion of rock\u2019s most cherished guitars being held captive in the iceberg basements of Silicon Valley, their voices forever silenced \u2013 except that one time Jeff Bezos took out Kurt\u2019s Jag-Stang for a halting attempt at Come As You Are.<\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>\n
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