The first guitar rock legend/Woodstock icon Jimi Hendrix ever set alight on stage was sold for $495,000 at an auction in London yesterday, according to Yahoo! News.
Hendrix set the guitar – a 1965 Fender Stratocastera – on fire after a performance in London in 1967 – a stunt that actually landed him in hospital for minor hand injuries.
The guitar had been kept at Hendrix’s assistant Tony Garland’s parent’s garage in southern England, before Garland’s nephew came across it last year.
Hendrix used lots of different guitars, but his guitar of choice and the instrument that became most associated with him, was in fact the Fender Stratocaster. He started playing with Stratocasters in 1966 and used it almost exclusively after that.
About two years ago, another of Hendrix’s guitars – a 1968 Fender Stratocaster – was also sold at an auction in London. It fetched $168,000.