<\/p>\n \u201cI used to be at the back of the class drawing guitars, big cello cutaway guitars with f holes; little solid ones with pointed cutaways and rounded cutaways. I was totally into guitars,\u201d he once said.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n A little playground gossip then got him one step closer to owning one of his own.<\/p>\n \u201cI heard about this kid who had a guitar, and it was \u00a33.10,\u201d Harrison explains. \u201cIt was just a little acoustic round, hall-type guitar, and I got the \u00a33.10 off my mother. That was a lot of money in those days.\u201d<\/p>\n Using an inflation calculator, \u00a33.10 in 1957, when Harrison would have been 14, amounts to approximately \u00a395\/$130 in today\u2019s money. Comparatively, it\u2019s significantly cheaper than the \u00a310 John Lennon\u2019s mother parted with for his first guitar, a South African Gallotone Champion flattop acoustic. In 2025, that would equate to around \u00a3308\/$420. It was bought from a magazine advert.<\/p>\n By 1958, Harrison had turned to a Hofner President. The single-cutaway acoustic featured a compensator tailpiece and, with a little help from the Bank of Mom once more, it was his for \u00a330 before, eventually, he purchased a Futurama<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n George’s mum, Louise \u2014 a.k.a. the Bank of Mom \u2014\u00a0in her kitchen. She and his father, Harold, championed his musical aspirations. (Image credit: Bettmann\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n The British government had outlawed the import of guitars in a bid to protect British manufacturers, meaning the guitar he truly craved, a Fender Stratocaster<\/a>, was off the menu. While the Futurama was built in Czechoslovakia, the instrument was made for British importer Selmer, thus slipping through the net to end on the wall of Hessy\u2019s Music Centre in Liverpool.<\/p>\n Harrison had idolized Buddy Holly<\/a> and the music he made with his American-made electric guitar<\/a>, and the Futurama represented the next best thing. The guitar would feature extensively during the band’s Hamburg days in the early ’60s, after a slightly calamitous test drive in the store.<\/p>\n Recalling the moment in the Beatles’ Anthology book, McCartney had said they’d noticed how the guitar had three pickups, and corresponding buttons on the treble side of the strings. When Harrison pushed one of them, \u201cthere was an almighty boom through the amplifier<\/a>, and all the other guitars fell off the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n After the Hamburg tour, Harrison bought a Gretsch Duo Jet, starting a love affair with the firm that led to one of his most iconic Beatles guitars, his Country Gentleman. That guitar was believed to have been destroyed in 1964, but new evidence suggests that might not be the case<\/a>.<\/p>\n Vintage guitar dealer Norman Harris has since revealed he had the chance to buy the guitar off the Beatle<\/a> during his formative years, but turned it down for one particular reason.<\/p>\n![\"Louise.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/AQJJ7d7Vue8uSCx7cUWpUa.jpg\")
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