A GUITAR that John Lennon played on the recording of The Beatles song Paperback Writer is expected to fetch up to £600,000 at auction.
Lennon gave his Gretsch 6120 guitar to his cousin, David Birch, in November 1967, the year after the hit single was recorded.
Mr Birch was given the guitar when he visited his older cousin at his Kenwood home in Weybridge, Surrey, and he asked Lennon if he had one he no longer wanted as he was trying to form his own band with friends.
His mother, Harriet, was a younger sister of Lennon's mother, Julia.
Mr Birch said: "I was just cheeky enough to ask John for one of his spare guitars. I had my eye on a blue Fender Stratocaster that was lying in the studio but John suggested the Gretsch and gave it to me as we were talking."
The Gretsch was part of Lennon's collection of guitars kept in his music room at the top of the house.
After leaving the Gretsch factory in Brooklyn, New York, the guitar has had only two documented owners, Lennon and Mr Birch.
The instrument is one of the most significant of Lennon's guitars to come on to the market in the last 30 years, said auctioneers TracksAuction.com.
Paperback Writer, written by Sir Paul McCartney and Lennon, was the A-side of their 11th single and went to No 1 in the UK and US charts. The Beatles Monthly Book magazine photographer, Online bidding for the guitar, with an estimated price of £400,000 to £600,000, begins on November 14 and ends with a live auction at Le Meridien Hotel, London, on November 23.
The auction contains more than 100 lots of Beatles memorabilia, including a copy of the Sgt. Pepper's album signed by the band, various items from the collection of Lennon's life-long friend Pete Shotton and the banjo played by Rod Davis in Lennon's original group, The Quarrymen.
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