George's Futurama Guitar

Julien’s Auctions announced today at a press conference from The Beatles Story in Liverpool that George Harrison’s Futurama guitar, one of the Beatle legend’s most significant and most played guitars in all of Fab 4 history– will headline Played, Worn and Torn II, the industry-leading music memorabilia auction house’s blockbuster three day event taking place Wednesday, November 20^th, Thursday, November 21^st and Friday, November 22^nd   live at The Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum at The Historic Municipal Auditorium in Nashville, TN and online at juliensauctions.com. 

George Harrison’s Futurama guitar will be on display in The Beatles Story Museum in Liverpool from Thursday, October 3rd until Thursday, October 23rd before making other stops in Europe until its appearance on the auction stage at Nashville’s premier attraction The Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum at The Historic Municipal Auditorium in November.

Considered one of the holy grails of historic Beatles guitars, this seminal guitar of early Beatlemania history is expected to exceed its estimate of $600,000-$800,000 USD £485,000- £647,000 GBP and make history once again this November on the auction stage.

George Harrison’s one and only Futurama is one of the two most important guitars used by Harrison with The Beatles. A c.1958 Resonet Futurama solid body electric guitar, serial #1126, in a sunburst finish, this Futurama was George Harrison’s most-played guitar in the early days of The Beatles, used on over 324 Beatle performances including the band’s early Cavern Club shows and on their legendary Hamburg tour in 1960-1961 in addition to being used on The Beatles’ first official recordings for Polydor from 1959-1961.

Read about the guitar’s history here.

The Beatles played a triumphant homecoming in Liverpool’s Litherland Town Hall on December 27th 1960, a February ’61 lunchtime show and subsequent performances at The Cavern Club, and on April 1, 1961 they returned to Germany with a 92-night residency at the Top Ten Club in Hamburg with British star Tony Sheridan during The Beatles’ last visit to Hamburg in 1962.

 “George Harrison’s Futurama guitar was The Beatles’ north star and one of his most loved instruments in his collection of legendary and prized guitars,” said Martin Nolan, Executive Director/Co-Founder of Julien’s Auctions. “This mythic guitar aptly named Futurama was played during the early Beatles’ countless ground breaking performances from their halcyon nights at the Cavern Club in Liverpool to their famous Hamburg Days where they honed their sound and style and the future of Beatlemania literally took off.”

Harrison’s Futurama guitar can be heard on “Ain’t She Sweet” and “Cry For A Shadow,” which was later released on a single by Polydor and officially released by The Beatles on Anthology 1 in 1995. In 1964, George Harrison donated the Futurama guitar to Beat Instrumental Magazine as a competition prize for a contest. The winner of the guitar was AJ Thompson of Saltdean, Sussex who decided to take the cash prize rather than the guitar which then stayed with the Beat Instrumental magazine editor Sean O’Mahony.

Julien’s Auctions has broken world records with the sale of Beatles memorabilia, most recently with John Lennon’s lost hootenanny guitar which sold for an unprecedented $2.9 million, making it the most expensive Beatles guitar to ever sell at auction, as well as a previous John Lennon acoustic guitar, which sold for a record $2.4 million, Ringo Starr’s Ludwig drum kit, which sold for a record $2.2 million, The Ludwig Beatles Ed Sullivan Show drumhead, which sold for a record price of $2.1 million, and The Beatles White Album, owned by Ringo Starr, that sold for $790,000.

To avoid disappointment, book now for the rare opportunity to see George’s Futurama guitar before it leaves Liverpool on 23rd October and is put to auction in Nashville.