image copyrightAPPLE FILMS LTD
photo comment,
Footage of McCartney playing the iconic McCartney guitar shortly before his disappearance appeared in the Get Back documentary.
Article informationAuthor, Sean Seddon, Role, BBC News
3 hours ago
A global search has been launched to find one of the world’s most iconic musical instruments – the original Hofner guitar, once owned by Beatle Paul McCartney.
The research project, dubbed The Lost Bass, is seeking any information about, or possible lead to, what it describes as “the most important guitar in history.”
The McCartney guitar is one of the three guitar types and, quite simply, the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and structure to an electric or acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and longer scale, usually contains four to six strings or courses, and has a deep sound.
Sir Paul McCartney bought the guitar for $38 in Hamburg, Germany, in 1961, but it disappeared eight years later.
The search began after McCartney urged guitar maker Hofner to track down his favorite instrument.
Guitar features appeared in the Beatles’ music in those years, including hits like Love Me Do and She Loves You.
Nick Wass heads the Find Hofner Guitar project and has teamed up with two journalists to try to solve “the greatest mystery in rock and roll history”, collaborates extensively with McCartney and has written a book about the missing guitar.
Wass told the BBC that the famous Beatle member asked him about the guitar during a conversation he had with him recently, and that is how the campaign to find it began.
He added that it was not clear what happened to the machine, which was supposed to be hidden and kept after the Beatles finished shooting the 1969 film Get Back.
But it appears that “it’s not clear where the instrument was hidden or stored, and who might have been there at the time,” Wass said.
A husband and wife team (Scott and Naomi Jones), both of whom worked for the BBC, are assisting in the search.
Curious about the guitar’s fate after seeing Paul McCartney as one of the headliners for Britain’s 2022 Glastonbury Music Festival, Scott contacted Hofner – only to discover they were already in talks to track it down after their famous client urged them to.
“Paul said to Hofner: ‘If anyone can find this guitar, it’s you guys,'” Scott told the BBC, “and that’s how the search for it began.”
He added, “We’re working together now on this project. Nick has more technical knowledge about this guitar than anyone else on the planet, and Naomi and I bring some investigative skills.”
No one can guess how much a guitar will fetch at auction but there are some predictions.
image copyrightDavid Redfern/Getty
photo comment,
McCartney still plays Hofner instruments to this day, like the one pictured above – but the first instrument he bought hasn’t been seen since 1969
John Lennon’s stolen guitar sold for $2.4 million when it resurfaced half a century later, and the track played by Kurt Cobain during an MTV hit set sold for $6 million.
The McCartney-era guitar is likely to outpace both, but McCartney’s Lost Guitar Team is clear that there is no commercial motive for their search.
“What we expect with McCartney’s guitar is that someone will come forward to tell about it in good faith,” Scott said, “and whoever has good faith may not even realize the value of what they have.”
He added: “It would be nice if one day the guitar could be put on public display – and if the only way someone could get ahead is to make some money, then so be it, because at least the guitar will be found.”
And he added, “But in the end we’re just doing this to get McCartney’s guitar back. We know from Nick and Hofner that this is what he wanted.”
The public call for the project went off just under 48 hours ago, but the team has “received really interesting leads that could lead to finding the guitar,” and the mission team is pursuing any clues to the guitar’s whereabouts.
How to identify a McCartney guitar
There are a few signs that any amateur detective should be aware of if trying to identify a guitar.
The Hofner company logo was written vertically on the head of the guitar (which is the piece of wood at the end of the guitar arm that contains screws to tighten the strings), which is a distinctive sign, since in the later versions that McCartney played with, the logo was horizontal.
It is believed that the missing guitar looked completely different the last time it was seen in the old photos, because it had undergone a refurbishment after the band’s extensive touring.
McCartney’s lost guitar has been painted darker, its pearl guard has been removed and a piece of black wood has been incorporated into it.
