Smashed Kurt Cobain Guitar Sells For $100,000

A smashed-up guitar that belonged to the late grunge-god Kurt Cobain has been sold to an unidentified collector for $100,000.


According to Helen Hall, a broker from the UK, it is the second-highest known price for an item of Cobain memorabilia. She also stated that the highest price that was paid for another Cobain guitar (a Mosrite Gospel Mark IV model) was $131,000 in 2006.

The guitar had belonged to punk-rocker Sluggo (yes, that’s his real name) of the Grannies and Hullabaloo. He said he acquired the smashed guitar in a trade with Cobain (for a working guitar) while Nirvana was on their first tour of the US.

The sale of the guitar was confirmed by Jacob McMurray, senior curator at the Experience Music Project in Seattle, who had the taped-up Fender Mustang guitar on display for a time.

“It’s a really cool-looking guitar because it’s smashed and held together with duct tape and Kurt Cobain wrote on it,” said McMurray. He also hoped that the buyer would allow the guitar to return to Seattle in 2010 for a Cobain exhibit that he is preparing.

“There’s not a huge amount of broken Nirvana guitars out there,” he explained, adding that most amount to nothing more than “little slivers and fragments.”