Yahoo Lifestyle Jeff Beck’s 1954 ‘Oxblood’ Gibson Les Paul Smashed Estimates to Sell for a Record $1.3 Million
Jeff Beck’s guitars made music history throughout his nearly 60-year career—and now one of his axes has done the same thing on the auction block.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s 1954 “Oxblood” Gibson Les Paul just hammered down for £1,068,500 ($1.3 million) at Christie’s in London yesterday, as the sale’s top lot. The instrument, which doubled its pre-sale top estimate of £500,000 ($616,000), is now the most expensive Gibson Les Paul ever sold at auction, according to the house.
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And it’s easy to see why Oxblood was such a hot commodity. The famed guitar can be seen on the cover of Blow by Blow, Beck’s 1975 solo instrumental album that features songs written by him as well as Stevie Wonder and keyboardist Max Middleton. The collector’s item was initially purchased in November 1972 in Memphis, and the former Yardbird used it to perform with David Bowie and Mick Ronson on July 3, 1973, at the farewell show of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders From Mars at the Hammersmith Odeon.
The Oxblood wasn’t the only record-breaker of the bunch. Beck’s pink Jackson soloist, which was signed by Tina Turner with a flick-knife (she even etched over her signature in green nail polish for good measure), fetched over 36 times its high estimate of $14,800 for a nearly $545,000 total; the memorabilia is now the most expensive Jackson axe ever sold at auction. And a pedalboard used on the rocker’s last tour in 2022 sold for a cool $155,600, with a pre-sale estimate of just $6,200, in another world record.
As for other Beck’s other instruments, his “Tele-Gib” Fender hammered down for nearly $856,000, while the white “Anoushka” electric guitar garnered $1.2 million. The Christie’s sale, which raked in a whopping £8,727,284 (nearly $11 million) in total, included over 130 guitars, amps, and “tools of the trade” from the legendary rocker’s collection.
“We are thrilled with the results of Jeff Beck’s incredible collection, which pay testament to the legacy of a genius—a globally revered true rock legend,” Amelia Walker, Christie’s specialist head of private and iconic collections, London, said in a statement. “Passionate bidders competed for every lot in the sale, with each achieving many multiples of their pre-sale estimate.”
And with a music icon like Beck, it only makes sense that people were clamoring for a part of his coveted collection.
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