November 22, 2003 12:38

BEATLES FOR SALE

The late Beatle's 'real cheapo, horrible little guitar' goes under the hammer...

George Harrison's acoustic guitar on which the late BEATLE learned to play, fetched £276,000 at auction on Thursday (November 20), despite only being bought for around £3.50.

George Harrison's father bought the Dutch-made Egmond guitar for his son, who then learnt his first chords on the instrument.

"Don't ask me why he chose a guitar instead of a mouth organ or something," the late George Harrison had previously said. "They certainly weren't popular at the time. Anyway, I learnt my first basic chords on it."

The guitarist died in 2001 after a battle with cancer.

He had described the guitar as "a real cheapo, horrible little guitar but it was OK at the time."

Despite breaking the guitar after he tried to fix it with a screwdriver, George Harrison's brother managed to fix it, but the neck had warped and the frets had started buzzing.

According to BBC News, a Fender Stratocaster given to the Beatle by comedian Spike Milligan also sold for £17,250 at the sale held by auctioneers Cooper Owen at London's Hard Rock Cafe.

A signed invitation to the after-show party of the premiere of the Beatles's film 'Hard Day's Night' went for £17,250.

Sent to George Harrison's friend, the actor Victor Spinetti, [a][/a] had written on it: "To Victor a chip off the old potato."