John Lennon 1962 Gibson J-160E Guitar

Two jumbos from Liverpool

In 1962, just after studio staff had complained about the worn-out state of the band's equipment, John Lennon and George Harrison ordered a matched pair of Gibson J-160E guitars. Gibson introduced the J-160E in 1954, and it was an odd hybrid. It looked like an ordinary flattop acoustic but had an electric-guitar pickup and controls. Unplugged, it worked for songwriting; plugged into an amplifier, it worked on stage and in the studio.

Gibson's usual British distributor did not sell the model, so the guitars were ordered from a catalog through Rushworth's, one of the few Liverpool shops that could supply American instruments. Gibson's shipping log shows that both left the factory on June 27, 1962, listed a few lines apart on the same page. The hire-purchase receipt for Lennon's is dated September 10, 1962, with a credit price of £161/1/-. Beatles gear historian Andy Babiuk puts that at about $450 at the time. Manager Brian Epstein paid it off in full almost exactly a year later.

Each guitar had a 16-inch round-shouldered body with mahogany back and sides, a three-ply laminated spruce top, a bound rosewood fingerboard with crown-shaped pearl inlays, three-on-a-side Kluson tuners, a tortoiseshell pickguard and a single Gibson P-90 pickup. Gibson's catalogs of the period called the J-160E the 'Electric Jumbo Model,' and Lennon and Harrison called theirs 'the jumbos.'

Why they chose such an unusual model is unclear. Singer Tony Sheridan, whom they had backed in Hamburg, believed they had meant to order the archtop Gibson ES-175 he played, which they also called 'the jumbo.' He also suggested another possible influence: the Martin D-28E with a pickup that he played in Hamburg.

In the studio as Beatlemania began

The guitars arrived while the Beatles were trying to finish their first single. On September 11, 1962, the day after the receipt date, the band went back to EMI's Abbey Road Studio 2 and recorded 'Love Me Do' and 'P.S. I Love You' again. In the studio, the band first recorded the J-160Es through amplifiers, not acoustically.

On February 11, 1963, the band recorded its debut album, Please Please Me, in a single day, and both J-160Es were in use. Six days later, Lennon and Harrison played them in a television appearance. On July 1, 1963, session photographs show Lennon with his J-160E plugged into his amplifier while the band recorded 'She Loves You.' On the autumn tour, his Rickenbacker was his main guitar, and he switched to the Gibson when a song called for it.

According to the sale catalog, Lennon also used the guitar at home to write with Paul McCartney. The catalog credits it with songs including 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,' 'Please Please Me,' 'From Me to You,' 'All My Loving' and 'This Boy,' and lists the singles 'Love Me Do,' 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You' and the albums Please Please Me and With the Beatles among the records it can be heard on. The 'Love Me Do' credit is disputed. Babiuk's own research notes that the band was never pictured with the J-160Es before September 10, 1962, which rules them out of the first two 'Love Me Do' sessions, including the September 4 take that was issued as the single.

One of the last times Lennon was filmed with the guitar was November 25, 1963, when he and Harrison mimed 'This Boy' on their J-160Es for the Granada television program Scene. Within weeks the guitar was gone.

Britain, 1962 to 1963

The guitar was in use for the 15 months in which the Beatles went from a Liverpool club act to a national sensation. 'Love Me Do' came out on October 5, 1962, the same day the first James Bond film, Dr. No, premiered in London. Please Please Me was released on March 22, 1963, and held the top of the British album chart for 30 straight weeks.

1963 was also the year of the Profumo affair and the Great Train Robbery, and of a change of prime minister: Harold Macmillan resigned in October and Alec Douglas-Home replaced him. With the Beatles came out on November 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, with 300,000 advance orders. A week later, 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' was released with more than a million advance orders.

Decades in San Diego

During the band's Christmas shows in London, Lennon realized his guitar was missing. In a later account, he said that he and Harrison often took a jumbo home, so nobody noticed until the end of the run. When he asked road manager Mal Evans where it was, they realized it had been stolen at Finsbury Park. 'No, I never got it back,' Lennon said. Evans called it 'still a mystery.'

How the guitar crossed the Atlantic is unknown. The sale catalog says Tommy Pressley bought it in the summer of 1967 from a music store in San Diego, with no idea of its history, and later sold it to his friend John McCaw. A writer who followed the story reported in 2016 that McCaw paid Pressley $175 in cash in 1969. Other reports say McCaw bought it in the late 1960s or in the 1970s. McCaw played it for decades without altering it. A local luthier told him never to change anything on it, not even the old tuners.

Eventually McCaw got curious about how old the guitar was. The catalog says he began looking into it in 2008. Babiuk's account and press reports place the breakthrough in 2014, when McCaw saw that the serial number printed in Babiuk's book for Harrison's J-160E was very close to his own. Through his guitar teacher he contacted Babiuk, who compared the wood grain with photographs of Lennon playing the guitar. 'Wood grain is like a fingerprint, no two are the same, and without a doubt it is a match,' Babiuk said.

The find was announced in June 2015, and before the sale the guitar was shown at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, and at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. McCaw also reached an agreement with Yoko Ono to give part of the proceeds to the Spirit Foundation, the charity she and Lennon founded. One report says the share was half. Another calls it significant and undisclosed.

On November 7, 2015, the guitar sold at auction in Beverly Hills to an anonymous buyer for $2,410,000, about three times its high estimate. Reports called it a record for a guitar with music-history significance. The previous benchmark was $965,000, paid for the Fender Stratocaster Bob Dylan played at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. A few guitars had brought more in private sales or charity auctions, so the record claim depends on how it is defined.

The switch that changed its identity

Lennon's and Harrison's guitars were identical, and at some point between September 1962 and December 1963 the two got swapped, whether on purpose or by accident. The guitar that disappeared, serial number 73157, was originally registered to Harrison on the hire-purchase paperwork. The guitar Harrison kept for decades, serial number 73161, is the one listed under Lennon's name on the original receipt.

So the serial number alone does not settle which guitar was Lennon's. The authentication relied on matching the grain of the spruce top to period photographs of Lennon with the guitar, backed by Gibson's shipping records, which list 73157 and 73161 on the same page and the same day. When it came to auction, the guitar was unmodified, apart from new strings and routine setups.

What it proved

The sale catalog called it the earliest and most significant John Lennon guitar ever offered at auction. Its result showed how much an instrument's documented place in music history can lift its price. In the same sale, the bass drumhead Ringo Starr used on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 brought $2.125 million.

The sale did not answer the oldest question about the guitar. Nobody knows how it left London, and the two people closest to it, Lennon and Evans, both called it a mystery.

The numbers

'Love Me Do' released

October 5, 1962

Please Please Me

Recorded in one day, February 11, 1963; 30 straight weeks at No. 1 on the UK album chart

With the Beatles

Released November 22, 1963, with 300,000 advance orders

'I Want to Hold Your Hand'

Released November 29, 1963, with more than one million advance orders

UK No. 1 singles, 1963

'From Me to You,' 'She Loves You' and 'I Want to Hold Your Hand'

Timeline

1. Jun 27, 1962

   Gibson ships J-160E serial 73157 and its twin, 73161, from the factory on the same day.

2. Sep 10, 1962

   Date of Lennon's hire-purchase receipt from Rushworth's in Liverpool, at a credit price of £161/1/-.

3. Sep 11, 1962

   The Beatles record 'Love Me Do' and 'P.S. I Love You' again at Abbey Road.

4. Oct 5, 1962

   'Love Me Do' is released as the Beatles' first single.

5. Feb 11, 1963

   The Beatles record Please Please Me in a single day, with both J-160Es in use.

6. Jul 1, 1963

   Lennon is photographed with the J-160E at the 'She Loves You' session.

7. Nov 25, 1963

   Lennon and Harrison mime 'This Boy' on their J-160Es for Granada television, one of the last times Lennon's guitar is filmed.

8. Dec 1963

   The guitar disappears during the Beatles' Christmas shows at Finsbury Park, London.

9. 1967

   Tommy Pressley buys it from a music store in San Diego without knowing its history.

10. 1969

    John McCaw buys it from Pressley, reportedly for $175.

11. 2014

    McCaw connects his serial number to the Beatles' guitars, and Andy Babiuk matches the wood grain to photographs of Lennon's guitar.

12. Jun 2015

    The rediscovery is announced, and the guitar goes on display in Austin and later at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles.

13. Nov 7, 2015

    Sells at auction in Beverly Hills for $2,410,000 to an anonymous buyer.

The world in 1962

• Jul 11, 1962

  The first live transatlantic television transmission, relayed by the Telstar satellite, is received in Britain.

• Oct 5, 1962

  Dr. No, the first James Bond film, premieres in London.

• Oct 24, 1962

  A British listening station is the first to detect Soviet ships returning to base during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

• Jun 5, 1963

  Secretary of State for War John Profumo resigns over the Profumo affair.

• Aug 8, 1963

  The Great Train Robbery takes place in Buckinghamshire.

• Oct 19, 1963

  Alec Douglas-Home succeeds Harold Macmillan as prime minister.

• Nov 22, 1963

  President John F. Kennedy is assassinated, and With the Beatles is released the same day.

• Nov 23, 1963

  Doctor Who premieres on BBC Television.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, John Lennon 1962 Gibson J-160E Guitar is number 37 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (35 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The guitar Lennon lost was originally registered to George Harrison. The two identical Gibsons were swapped at some point, and Harrison kept the one listed under Lennon's name.
• The authentication came down to wood grain: Babiuk matched the grain of the top to photographs of Lennon playing the guitar.
• Gibson's usual British distributor did not sell the J-160E, so the Beatles had to order theirs from a catalog.
• A shop advertisement claimed the guitars were 'specially flown to England by jet from America.' Babiuk thinks they more likely came by sea.
• For more than 25 years the guitar had no case that fit it properly. A case maker built and donated one before the sale.
• The wife of McCaw's guitar teacher took the guitar to her fourth-grade class, which was studying Lennon and his message of peace.