John Lennon’s lost guitar, featured on ‘Help!’, sold for a record $2.8 million

NEW YORK — A 12-string acoustic guitar that John Lennon played in the 1965 film “Help!” sold at auction for $2.8 million after being lost in an attic for decades, NBC News reported.,

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The 1962 12-string Framus Hootenanny guitar played by both Lennon and George Harrison during the filming of “Help!” became the most expensive guitar ever played by a former Beatle and one of the most costly guitars in history the network reported.

The guitar appeared in multiple songs on at least two Beatles albums but was forgotten for more than 50 years before it turned up in the attic of a British countryside home The New York Times reported. Lennon and Harrison both played the guitar on the “Help!” and “Rubber Soul” albums, according to Julien’s Auctions after it sold on Wednesday. The instrument was auctioned at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York after a frenetic round of bidding that finished at $2,847,000, making it the fifth-most expensive guitar ever sold, Julien’s reported. The guitar matched photographs taken during both sessions of the albums and stills from the movie “Help!”

Beatles’ producer George Martin produced handwritten notes from both sessions that the Hootenanny was used by both Lennon and Harrison on “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” and was heard as Lennon tuned it up in outtakes from “Help!” according to Julien’s website.

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The German-made guitar also prominently appears on “It’s Only Love,” ”I’ve Just Seen a Face,” and of course, “Help!” Harrison played it in the Beatles’ acoustic masterpiece “Norwegian Wood.”

The guitar is said to have a distinctive tone that immediately identifies it. Beatles gear expert Andy Babiuk identified it by “the swirl in its tortoise-shell pick guard” and the instrument’s sound.

“This is a guitar that has been missing since 1965,” he said. “It’s one of the missing Beatles guitars, it’s one of the few Beatles guitars that have not been found.

“It’s so important — it’s the sound we hear on those great songs that we all love, and it’s so great to know that a piece of history has finally been found,” he added, NBC News reported.

The guitar’s case was also found along with its shop tag. A man in Britain found the guitar in his parents’ attic as they were moving out of the house,” Darren Julien, co-founder of Julien Auctions said in a video. After the man found the guitar and the case, he called the auction house immediately.