Jeff Beck Was One of Rock's Greatest Guitarists. Now His Instruments are Up For Auction

Britain Jeff Beck Auction (AP 2011)
Britain Jeff Beck Auction (AP 2011)
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Jeff Beck Was One of Rock's Greatest Guitarists. Now His Instruments are Up For Auction

Britain Jeff Beck Auction (AP 2011)
Britain Jeff Beck Auction (AP 2011)

Musicians, collectors and fans have a chance to own guitar tools of the trade — instruments owned by the late Jeff Beck are going up for auction.
Christie’s announced Friday it will sell more than 130 items, including 90 guitars, from the collection of the Yardbirds and Jeff Beck Group guitarist, who died in January 2023 at age 78, The Associated Press said.
Valued at more than 1 million pounds ($1.3 million), the collection includes an oxblood 1954 Gibson Les Paul that Beck bought in Memphis in 1972 and played for the rest of the decade. The guitar, which is featured on the cover of Beck’s Grammy-winning 1975 jazz-fusion album “Blow by Blow,” is expected to sell for between 350,000 pounds and 500,000 pounds ($450,000 and $640,000).
Amelia Walker, head of Private and Iconic Collections at Christie's, called it “a really beautiful instrument, covered in grime and dust and signs of use.”
“I think it’s part of the appeal,” she said. “These are things that he used. They’ve got the indents of his fingernails on the fret boards. Some of them, the strings haven’t been changed for years. He played them hard. He didn’t see them as precious works of art -– they were his tools to ply his trade with.”
Beck came to prominence in the 1960s with hard-rock progenitors the Yardbirds and went on to a solo career that incorporated rock, jazz, blues and even opera. Twice inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — with the Yardbirds and as a solo artist -– he played with everyone from Rod Stewart to Davie Bowie, Stevie Wonder and Tina Turner, and was known for his improvisational skill and the unique sound he got from the whammy bar on his preferred guitar, the Fender Stratocaster.
“He had an unparalleled ability to bend entire tones” on the Strat, Walker said. The sale includes Beck’s 1954 Sunburst Fender Stratocaster, valued at between 50,000 pounds and 80,000 pounds ($65,000 and $100,000), and a white Strat that was his staple instrument for 16 years, played everywhere from Ronnie Scott’s jazz club to the Obama White House. It has an estimated value between 20,000 pounds and 30,000 pounds ($26,000 and $39,000).
One of a group of 1960s guitar heroes that included Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix, Beck was revered by many peers as “the ultimate maestro,” Walker said.
As well as Beck’s beloved Strats, the sale features other models including a Telecaster-Gibson hybrid “Tele-Gib” valued at between 100,000 pounds and 150,000 pounds ($130,000 and $190,000).
“It didn’t really matter what he was playing, he’d always sound like Jeff Beck,” Walker said. “It didn’t matter what the amp was turned to or which guitar, he could still pick it up and make it sound incredible. It’s all in the fingers, and in his brain.”
The sale follows Christie's auction of some of Dire Straits’ guitarist Mark Knopfler’s collection, which raised more than 8.8 million pounds ($11.2 million) earlier this year, and memorabilia from model, artist and 1960s musicians’ muse Pattie Boyd, which sold for 2.8 million pounds ($3.6 million) in March.
Beck’s widow, Sandra Beck, said it was a “massive wrench” to part with the collection, but that “I know Jeff wanted for me to share this love.”
“After some hard thinking I decided they need to be shared, played and loved again,” she said.
A selection of the guitars will go on display at Christie's Los Angeles showroom Dec. 4-6, and the whole collection will be at Christie’s in London from Jan. 15 until the sale on Jan. 22.



Tomorrowland Music Festival Opens after its Main Stage was Destroyed by Huge Fire

The burned main stage is seen at the Tomorrowland music festival in Boom, Belgium, Friday, July 18, 2025, two days after a huge fire destroyed the stage on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)
The burned main stage is seen at the Tomorrowland music festival in Boom, Belgium, Friday, July 18, 2025, two days after a huge fire destroyed the stage on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)
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Tomorrowland Music Festival Opens after its Main Stage was Destroyed by Huge Fire

The burned main stage is seen at the Tomorrowland music festival in Boom, Belgium, Friday, July 18, 2025, two days after a huge fire destroyed the stage on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)
The burned main stage is seen at the Tomorrowland music festival in Boom, Belgium, Friday, July 18, 2025, two days after a huge fire destroyed the stage on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)

Fans roared in excitement and organizers sighed with relief as the Tomorrowland music festival kicked off Friday — just two days after a massive fire engulfed the main stage and threw one of Europe's biggest summer concert events into doubt.

Workers labored around the clock to clear out the debris from the elaborate backdrop that was consumed in Wednesday's fire.

Shouting ‘’We made it!'', the festival's opening performers, Australian electronic music group Nervo, were able to take to the main stage Friday after a last-minute scramble and slight delay. Some charred frames were still visible behind them.

No one was hurt in the fire, organizers said. The causes are being investigated.
Hundreds of thousands of people from around the world attend Tomorrowland's annual multi-day festival outside the Belgian town of Boom.

Some 38,000 people were camping at the festival site Friday, Tomorrowland spokesperson Debby Wilmsen said.

’’Maybe there are some few people that say, OK, we would like to have a refund, but it’s only like a very small percentage because most of them are still coming to the festival,” she told AP.

“It is all about unity, and I think with a good vibe and a positive energy that our festival-goers give to each other and the music we offer, I think they will still have a good time,″ she said. ’’We really tried our best.″

Australian fans Zak Hiscock and Brooke Antoniou — who traveled half the world to see the famed festival as part of a summer holiday in Europe — described hearing about the fire.

“We were sitting having dinner when we actually heard the news of the stage burning down. We were very devastated and shattered, quite upset because we travelled a long way,'' Hiscock said.

Ukrainian visitor Oleksandr Beshkynskyi shared their joy that the festival went ahead as planned.

‘’It’s not just about the one DJ or two DJs you’re looking to see, but about all the mood and about the dream being alive," Beshkynskyi said.