Johnny Marr Guitar Auction Raises £3.6m as Rickenbacker Sells for £358,400

Johnny Marr’s guitar collection has sold for more than £3.6million at Christie’s in London, with instruments spanning The Smiths, Electronic, The The, Modest Mouse, The Cribs and his solo career going under the hammer.

The 111-lot ‘Marr’s Guitars’ sale realised £3,649,280, more than three times its original estimate, with Marr’s famous 1982 Rickenbacker 330 Jetglo leading the auction after selling for £358,400. 

Calling them simply Smiths guitars, however, hardly tells the story.

Since The Smiths split in 1987, Marr has built one of the most varied careers of any British guitarist of his generation. He joined The Pretenders and The The, formed Electronic with New Order’s Bernard Sumner, fronted Johnny Marr + The Healers and later became a member of both Modest Mouse and The Cribs. His work has stretched far beyond conventional bands too, from a successful solo career to film scores with Hans Zimmer, including ‘Inception’ and the James Bond film ‘No Time to Die’, where Marr also played on Billie Eilish’s title theme. He has repeatedly collaborated with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, appearing on tracks including ‘Ballad of the Mighty I’, ‘If Love Is the Law’, ‘Pretty Boy’ and ‘Council Skies’, while more recent work with Gorillaz has carried his playing into yet another generation.

The instruments in the Christie’s collection tell much the same story. Guitars first heard on Smiths records later resurfaced with entirely different bands, on film soundtracks and across Marr’s solo work, while others were loaned to friends including Sumner, Radiohead, Noel Gallagher and Bernard Butler. One instrument could begin its life helping define Manchester indie, reappear years later on an Oasis record and then find its way onto another Marr project entirely. Taken together, the collection is less a set of Smiths memorabilia than a physical record of more than four decades spent moving between bands, collaborators, studios and generations of British music.

Taken together, the collection feels less like a set of Smiths memorabilia and more like a physical record of Marr’s career: more than four decades of bands, collaborations, soundtracks and friendships documented through the instruments that travelled with him.

None tells that story better than his 1982 Rickenbacker 330 Jetglo.

Marr acquired the guitar in 1983 after signing his first publishing deal, and it quickly became one of the defining instruments of the early Smiths. It was used extensively during the recording of their debut album and can be heard on ‘What Difference Does It Make?’, ‘This Charming Man’, ‘Still Ill’ and ‘Accept Yourself’, while also becoming Marr’s main guitar during the band’s early tours.

A slight myth around ‘This Charming Man’ is worth clearing up. The Rickenbacker contributed to the recording, but the famous opening sound was largely created using producer John Porter’s early-1950s Fender Telecaster, tracked alongside the Rickenbacker. Marr has since said that ‘What Difference Does It Make?’ is probably the recording on which the character of the 330 can be heard most clearly.

Its story did not end with The Smiths. In 1994, Marr lent the Rickenbacker to Noel Gallagher during the early Oasis period, and it subsequently appeared in Gallagher’s hands on the cover of the band’s debut single, ‘Supersonic’. One guitar had therefore become physically connected to two different generations of Manchester music, first helping shape the sound of The Smiths before entering the story of Oasis.

Few instruments in British guitar music can claim a lineage quite like it.

Its original estimate of £60,000 to £80,000 ultimately proved extremely conservative. When it went under the hammer on 17 September 2026, an intense bidding battle lasting more than five minutes pushed the final price to £358,400.

Another of Marr’s most recognisable instruments, his 1960 Cherry Red Gibson ES-355, sold for £204,800 after being estimated at between £100,000 and £150,000.

The story behind that guitar is almost as good. Sire Records founder Seymour Stein bought it for Marr on New York’s 48th Street in early 1984 after Marr joked that The Smiths would sign to the label if Stein bought him a new guitar. Marr took the ES-355 back to his hotel and, on the same day, began developing the music that would become ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ and its B-side, ‘Girl Afraid’.

The guitar became almost as visually associated with Marr as the Rickenbacker. It appeared during some of The Smiths’ best-known television performances, including appearances on ‘Top of the Pops’ and ‘The Tube’, and made enough of an impression on the generation that followed that both Noel Gallagher and Bernard Butler would later become closely associated with red Gibson ES-355s of their own.

The auction also demonstrated just how far Marr’s career had travelled beyond The Smiths. A 2017 Fender Johnny Marr Signature Jaguar in Comet Sparkle, for example, was used to record the ‘James Bond Theme’ for Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack to ‘No Time to Die’. Marr also played the guitar when he joined Billie Eilish for the first live performance of the film’s title song at the BRIT Awards. Estimated at between £8,000 and £12,000, it eventually sold for £46,080 after attracting 11 bidders.

That instrument provides a neat contrast with the Rickenbacker. One helped Marr create the sound of a young Manchester band at the beginning of the 1980s; another found him nearly four decades later playing James Bond music alongside Hans Zimmer and Billie Eilish. Both belonged to the same collection.

The sale also had a significant charitable element. Marr donated 100 per cent of the hammer price from 31 lots, including ten guitars alongside concert posters and sales awards, with the proceeds split between The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and the National Autistic Society. Interest extended far beyond the UK, with bidders registering from 34 countries and the auction lasting more than five hours.

The decision to sell such a substantial part of the collection grew out of ‘Marr’s Guitars’, the 2023 book Marr created with photographer Pat Graham. Bringing the instruments out of storage to document them made him reconsider what should happen to guitars that had spent decades being written, recorded and performed with.

These guitars were never simply objects attached to one period of Marr’s life. They travelled through The Smiths, The Pretenders, The The, Electronic, The Healers, Modest Mouse, The Cribs and his solo career. They appeared on film scores, passed between friends and collaborators, and occasionally helped shape records by artists who grew up listening to Marr in the first place.

Nor does selling them mean Marr is simply looking backwards. Several guitars included in the Christie’s collection were used while making his new solo album ‘The Age Of Everything’, which is released on 2 October 2026. Instruments carrying more than forty years of history were still being used to make new music almost until the moment they were sold.

That perhaps explains the collection better than any auction estimate could. The importance of these guitars does not come solely from their age or their association with The Smiths. It comes from what happened to them afterwards.

A Rickenbacker moves from ‘What Difference Does It Make?’ to the cover of ‘Supersonic’. A Gibson bought as part of a joke with a record-label boss helps produce ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ and inspires another generation of guitarists. A modern Jaguar ends up on a James Bond soundtrack with Hans Zimmer and Billie Eilish.

Taken together, they document more than Johnny Marr’s career. They trace connections between artists, bands and generations across more than four decades of British guitar music.

If you are interested in seeing the complete collection and what each lot sold for, the full results are available through Christie’s.