David Gilmour selling off 120 guitars for charity

Any good deals?

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including his famous black strat

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How does his maple fretboard, famous black strat not have any wear showing?

example:

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How does his maple fretboard, famous black strat not have any wear showing? 

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From what I read, he has replaced the neck 3 or 4 times since he bought it.

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Is that Clapton’s?

Gilmour guitar is an auction pic. The wear is there but you have to zoom in. Maybe Clapton’s a greasy old fella? He was certainly a drunk and or a heroin addict while that was his primary guitar. Drunk and a cigarette smoking junkie.

No idea what Gilmour dabbled in? 70’s and The Floyd makes me assume everything, but I don’t know.

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yes it is.

good point, I'm sure Gilmour was no choir boy

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How does his maple fretboard, famous black strat not have any wear showing? 

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It does have some wear marks on it, not a ton but it's there.

The black strat has had several necks. I know it wore a Charvel strat head neck at one point decades ago. The auction photo is a maple fingerboard, the pic of David playing it on the auction site and above ^^^^, it has a rosewood fingerboard. There's easy proof.

Regardless of the owner, 70s strat fingerboards and 50s strat fingerboards will wear differently because 50s Fenders used nitrocellulose lacquer for clearcoat. It's thinner, more brittle and easier to erode away. Fender had transitioned to polyester clearcoats by the 70s, which were not only harder but applied thicker. One reason they did this was - you guessed it - so they wouldn't erode away as quickly with regular use.

Christie's pre-auction estimates are always low-ball compared to what they actually go for. I'd be surprised if the black strat sold for less than half a million honestly. My guess is $750K.

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I'd be surprised if the black strat sold for less than half a million honestly. My guess is $750K.

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Yeah, there's no way it sells for 150k. That's one of the most iconic guitars of all time. I can't believe he's selling it!

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I'm sure Gilmour was no choir boy

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Well, relative to their peers, Gilmour and Waters were very "choir boy"ish. Particularly in response to Syd's LSD-fueled meltdown (he had a very serious mental illness and was a heavy user of LSD), Roger and David as leaders of the band were vocally anti-drug (elements of Comfortably Numb at least partially inspired by an incident where Roger was shot up with something before a show in Philadelphia, ostensibly against his will), at least beyond cigarettes, booze and weed. Now, it is no secret they all were experimenting in the 1960s, but by the classic Floyd period, they were all pretty clean except for Rick who picked up a pretty significant cocaine habit in the mid/late 70s.

Gilmour even left that little cough on the recording for the intro of the title track from Wish You Were Here to remind him to not smoke cigs. And Gilmour had a little bout with cocaine, but all reports indicate it was brief (about 2 years).

Now, Gilmour and Polly basically admit to having smoked pot with their kids, but I'm assuming all you baws on the music board are "down" with just weed, right?

I'm still shocked hes auctioning off his black strat. He literally getting rid off pretty much everything other than his Esquire that Seymour Duncan gave him. He said he has several of his custom shop black strats and that's what he will use when he plays live again. I would love to have that 55 Les Paul that he played on the Another Brick in the Wall solo.