[Dixielandjazz] Clapton's guitar Sale - $2.15 Million

[Stephen G Barbone]

Here's the bottom line on that sale of Eric Clapton's Guitars and  
Amps, and he's not even dead yet. <grin>.


Cheers,

Steve Barbone

www.myspace.com/barbonesttreetjassband


March 10, 2011 - NY Times - By Robin Pogrebin



Eric Clapton Raises Money for Crossroads Center

Social science was right: Eric Clapton raised $2.15 million at a New  
York auction of 75 guitars and 55 amplifiers on Wednesday, more than  
triple the pre-sale expectations, Reuters reported on Thursday. The  
proceeds from the sale at Bonhams – at which every lot sold — will go  
to the 65-year-old rock star’s Crossroads Center drug and alcohol  
treatment facility in the Caribbean. The auction – the proceeds of  
which totaled around $1.8 million without the buyer’s premium -also  
included instruments donated by Mr. Clapton’s musician friends Jeff  
Beck, J.J. Cale and Joe Bonamassa. Among the top lots was a 1948  
Gibson L-5P, which was expected to bring $20,000 to $30,000 but raised  
$82,960; a 2005 Zemaitis S22BP 3S, estimated at $12,000 to $18,000,  
which sold for $75,640; and a pair of 1997 Fender Twin Amps, estimated  
at $9,000 to $12,000, which sold for $42,700. A team of Yale  
University psychologists studying people’s desire to own artifacts  
once possessed by famous people recently concluded that “celebrity  
contagion” was the most important factor in such purchases.