Smells like a bargain.<\/p>\n
Kurt Cobain guitar from the \u201cSmells Like Teen Spirit\u201d music video will be sold an a Midtown auction next spring \u2014 and it\u2019s expected to fetch millions, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n
The Nirvana frontman\u2019s 1969 Fender Mustang will be put up as part of massive sale of the late Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay\u2019s<\/a> music memorabilia by Christie\u2019s in March, with an estimated sale price of between $2.5 million and $5 million. according to the company\u2019s global president Alexander Rotter.<\/p>\n \u201cHe made the greatest music on this guitar and defined a generation,\u201d Rotter told The Post of the Mustang, which is rumored to have been one of Cobain\u2019s favorite axes.<\/p>\n Kurt Cobain\u2019s iconic Fender Mustang seen in Nirvana\u2019s \u201cSmells Like Teen Spirit\u201d music video will be sold at a Midtown auction next March. Brian Zak\/NY Post<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a piece of American history, so I [predict] a lot of people coming in for it \u2026 I am convinced it will get competitive.\u201d <\/p>\n The sale is set to bring a record number of music fans into the free-to-enter Rockefeller Plaza galleries, which previously peddled guitars that once belonged to rockers Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, among others, the auction veteran said.<\/p>\n \u201cI expect this building to be crowded when we\u2019re selling this collection \u2014 excitingly crowded, it\u2019s going to feel like a concert,\u201d Rotter said. \u201cWhen we open up and go into popular culture at the highest level, because that\u2019s what we do, it gets exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n Irsay purchased the iconic instrument for $4.6 million in 2022, making it the highest-priced electric guitar in the world at the time.<\/p>\n Kurt Cobain is playing his iconic 1969 Lake Placid blue Fender Mustang guitar in the \u201cSmells Like Teen Spirit\u201d music video. YouTube\/Nirvana<\/p>\n Despite significant paint scratches and other damage on the instrument\u2019s body, Rotter noted the guitar hasn\u2019t quite met the fate of other Cobain-owned instruments \u2014 some which were smashed onstage or otherwise battered.<\/p>\n Cobain\u2019s pummeled Fender Stratocaster guitar sold at auction in 2023 for a whopping $595,000, despite being unplayable.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cHe didn\u2019t go crazy with it, [like] with some other guitars that we\u2019ve seen in videos or live concerts,\u201d Rotter said of the Fender Mustang, \u201cso he took care of it and it survived.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe didn\u2019t go crazy with it, [like] with some other guitars that we\u2019ve seen in videos or live concerts,\u201d Rotter said, \u201cso he took care of it and it survived.\u201d Brian Zak\/NY Post<\/p>\n \u201cOut of all the guitars in the whole world, the Fender Mustang is my favorite,\u201d Cobain told Guitar World<\/a> in a 1991 interview, going on to call the models as \u201ccheap and totally inefficient, and they sound like crap and are very small.\u201d<\/p>\n Cobain went on to proclaim his love for his left-handed Mustang: \u201cOut of all the guitars in the whole world, the\u00a0Fender Mustang<\/a>\u00a0is my favorite. I\u2019ve only owned two of them \u2026 Lately, I\u2019ve been using a Strat live, because I don\u2019t want to ruin my Mustang yet.\u201d<\/p>\n For Nirvana fans who can\u2019t wait until next spring, Christie\u2019s will be auctioning an Elizabeth Peyton portrait of Kurt Cobain on Wednesday, which is estimated to sell for between $2 to $3 million.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s almost a love letter in portraiture form of Kurt by one of the greatest portrait artists of her generation,\u201d Rotter said, noting the artwork was completed a year after Cobain\u2019s 1994 death by suicide. He was 27 years old.<\/p>\n Christie\u2019s global president Alex Rotter poses with a 1995 Elizabeth Peyton portrait of Kurt Cobain and the rock legend\u2019s cherished Fender Mustang. Brian Zak\/NY Post<\/p>\n