Image of Kurt Cobain. (Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons)
The battered guitar, with a broken neck and a handwritten greeting, went to auction in May 2023, according to The Washington Post. The Fender Stratocaster had passed from the Nirvana singer to Mark Lanegan in 1992 during the band’s North American tour. Years later, Julien’s Auctions sold it for $596,900, against an estimated value of $60,000 to $80,000, per Julien’s Auctions . The event included more than 1,200 items connected to musicians such as Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan. Darren Julien, the president and CEO of Julien’s Auctions, opened the bidding at $15,000 as per the Post. The $596,900 result was far above the auction house’s estimate.
Cobain sang on “Down in the Dark” and played guitar on “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” , both on Lanegan’s 1990 solo album, The Winding Sheet. Lanegan also contributed to the lyrics of “Something in the Way,” which appeared on Nirvana’s seminal album Nevermind. The two had reportedly planned to work on an album titled “The Jury,” but the plan never came to fruition. It had a white bumper sticker that said: “Vandalism: Beautiful as a Rock / in a Cop’s Face” . Another was broken during the studio recording of It was offered in a black Fender hard case marked “Abort Christ” in white lettering. The sale was part of a three-day “Music Icons” auction at Hard Rock Cafe in New York. This followed other sales of Cobain instruments, the Los Angeles Times reported in 2023, including his acoustic Martin D-18 E, used during Nirvana’s “MTV Unplugged” performance, which sold for $6 million in 2020. Another was a 1969 Fender Mustang from the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video, which fetched $4.5 million in 2022.
Kurt Cobain remained a name inseparable from the annals of rock and roll history. A divisive figure, he was endeared to his generation and inspired a devoted following. Older rock audiences did not always understand his songwriting, defined by criticism of apathy and hypocrisy. The guitar’s recipient was Mark Lanegan, the singer-songwriter of Screaming Trees and a close friend and musical collaborator of Cobain. There were two other black Fender guitars associated with Cobain’s instrument destruction: One, displayed at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture.
Their work crossed over on music recordings before the gift.
