Kurt Cobain's Guitar Sold For $6M At Beverly Hills Auction

BEVERLY HILLS, CA — Did someone really just pay $6 million for a guitar? All apologies.

But it wasn’t just any guitar.

On Saturday, Nirvana front-man Kurt Cobain’s guitar, on which he once strummed “All Apologies” during an iconic 1993 MTV Unplugged performance – sold for $6 million at Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills.

Bidding for the 1969 Martin D-18E guitar started at $1 million, and rose to a record-breaking $6,010,000, which Julien’s Auctions said set a new world record for guitars.

After Peter Freedman, the Australian founder and owner of Røde Microphones who placed the bid, told PA News Agency that he planned to put the guitar on tour worldwide (appropriate, given its former owner) to highlight the plight of musicians. Cobain decorated the guitar himself before playing it at an acoustic New York City show just five months before he committed suicide in 1994.

“I didn't even buy it for me. I paid for it but I'm going to use it to highlight the plight of artists worldwide by touring it around and then I'm going to sell it and use the dough for that as well, later," Freedman told PA.

Freedman also told PA that he had no limit on what he would pay for the guitar, saying, “I was going to get it.”

This wasn’t even the first rockstar guitar sold during Juliens Auctions’ Music Icons auction. On Friday, they sold one of Prince’s custom guitars for $563,500. According to NBC News, the bright blue guitar with the artist’s famous symbol was used during his 1984 Purple Rain Tour, and throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s.

Friday also saw the sale of a macramé belt worn often by Elvis Presley, which sold for $298,000, and the gown Madonna wore in the 1990 music video for “Vogue”, which fetched $179,200.