Kurt Cobain’s guitar from the ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ music video is expected to fetch between $600,000 to $800,000 at auction.
The late Nirvana frontman’s left-handed 1969 Fender Mustang in Lake Placid Blue is set to go under the hammer as part of Julien’s Auctions’ three-day Music Icons sale, between May 20 and 22 at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York.
Online bids will also be welcome.
Speaking in an interview in 1991, the year the iconic promo came out, Kurt hailed the guitar his “favourite”.
He said: “I’m left-handed, and it’s not very easy to find reasonably priced, high-quality left-handed guitars.
“But out of all the guitars in the whole world, the Fender Mustang is my favourite.”
The auction’s CEO Julian commented: “[It is] one of the most culturally significant and historically important guitars not only of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana’s legacy but in all of rock music history.
“Rarely do personally owned items from Kurt Cobain with this incredible and unprecedented provenance of his life and career become available for public sale.”
A number of items belonging to the Grunge icon – who took his own life, aged 27, in April 1994 – are also being sold.
Including, his and widow Courtney Love’s 1965 sky blue Dodge Dart that Cobain, complete with its original license plates, which has an estimation of $400,000 and $600,000.
The vehicle stayed in the family, with the Hole frontwoman’s sister buying the automobile from her following Kurt’s death.
Other items up for grabs include Kurt’s drawing of Michael Jackson and tour and airline passes.
In 2020, Kurt’s acoustic guitar from Nirvana’s iconic 1993 ‘MTV Unplugged in New York’ performance sold for a record-breaking $6 million at auction.
The instrument ended up breaking the record for the most expensive guitar sale.
The lot came with the guitar case Kurt used, which has a poster of Poison Idea’s album ‘Feel the Darkness’ on it, whilst inside is a bunch of guitar strings, picks, and a “stash” bag.
Meanwhile, a cardigan owned by Kurt was also sold at auction in 2019 for $334,000.