“An icon of late 1960s rock history”: George Harrison and Eric Clapton’s historic 1913 Gibson ‘Pattie’ acoustic is headed to auction – months after it was listed on Reverb for almost $1,000,000

(Image credit: Heritage Auctions)

The unique 1913 Gibson acoustic guitar, which Eric Clapton and George Harrison used to write some of their most iconic songs, is going up for auction this week.

The quirky Style-0 archtop, fondly nicknamed “Pattie”, has been listed by Heritage Auctions, and is currently awaiting an opening bid of $150,000.

Not much is known about the guitar’s earliest years, but the fate of the Gibson Style-0 Archtop, which bears the serial number #14106, changed dramatically when the two guitarists got their hands on it in the late ‘60s.

It’s lovingly been dubbed “Pattie” after Pattie Boyd, the woman they both married. Heritage Auctions has dubbed it “not only a testament to Gibson’s golden era, [but] an icon of late 1960s rock history.”

Harrison was photographed playing the guitar in October 1968 alongside Clapton at Alan Pariser’s Los Angeles garden. According to reports, it was here that the seeds of some of Harrison’s most iconic compositions – including Here Comes the Sun, I Me Mine, and All Things Must Pass – were planted. It’s also believed to have helped inspire Clapton to write Layla.

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(Image credit: Heritage Auctions)This guitar, then, sits at the very center of the Harrison/Clapton relationship, and a shared love that sparked some iconic music.

Clapton later gifted the guitar to Delaney Bramlett, who played a key role in Calpton’s and Harrison’s respective solo careers, around 1970. It was first auctioned in 2013, five years after Bramlett’s death.

(Image credit: Heritage Auctions)The guitar is in surprisingly good condition despite being well over 100 years old, although there are some signs of its workhorse nature.

See Heritage Auctions for more.

A freelance writer with a penchant for music that gets weird, Phil is a regular contributor to Prog, Guitar World, and Total Guitar magazines and is especially keen on shining a light on unknown artists. Outside of the journalism realm, you can find him writing angular riffs in progressive metal band, Prognosis, in which he slings an 8-string Strandberg Boden Original, churning that low string through a variety of tunings. He’s also a published author and is currently penning his debut novel which chucks fantasy, mythology and humanity into a great big melting pot.