Happy birthday David Gilmour! The legendary Pink Floyd guitarist is no doubt slicing into a guitar shaped cake somewhere. Looks like he's doing some spring cleaning. He's putting 120 of his guitars up on the auction block at Christie’s New York headquarters this June. “Everything has got to go,” he says. “It’s the spring sale.”
And what a sale it is! You could own his 1969 Black Fender Stratocaster that he bought at Manny's in New York in 1970. Known as “The Black Strat,” it became his most identified instrument in the studio and in concert over the course of nearly 50 years, and was key to developing the Pink Floyd sound. It was played in the recordings of landmark albums such as the 1973 masterpiece “The Dark Side of the Moon,” “Wish You Were Here” (1975), “Animals” (1977); and “The Wall” (1979). This is the guitar that gave us that incredible solo on "Comfortably Numb"! It's expected to go for $100,000 to $150,000.
There are so many guitars and so many stories. Browse through the collection here at Christies.com. He told RollingStone.com that the auction’s proceeds will benefit Gilmour’s charitable foundation, which he’s been running for decades. “The money will be going to the larger needs of famine relief, homelessness and displacement of people throughout the world.” About giving up these historic instruments David says, "I’m both sad with losing some of the instruments and relieved to get this thing dealt with and that it will be doing some good. If I need a particular guitar, I’ll go out and buy another one. They are the tools of my trade. They have given me music, but in the end, they are the tools that I use."
Watch him play the 1969 D-35 Martin that he bought on the streets of New York in 1971, and used to play "Wish You Were Here" (estimate $10,000-20,000).