Bob Dylan goes electric at the Newport Folk Festival, 1965. His guitar, featured on an episode of History Detectives, set a new auction record.
(Photo: Thomas Monaster)
A guitar played by Bob Dylan at his famous Newport Folk Festival appearance in 1965 sold for nearly $1 million Friday, two years after it was featured in an episode of PBS’s History Detectives.
The 1964 Fender Stratocaster went for $965,000 at New York auction house Christie’s, setting a new auction record for a guitar. A Christie’s spokesperson told CNN that it was purchased by an unidentified buyer.
In 2011, the daughter of a pilot who flew Dylan to performances in the ’60s submitted the guitar to History Detectives, claiming that it was the same instrument the musician played at Newport, then his first live electric performance.
Dawn Peterson claimed that Dylan left the guitar on her father’s plane, and the PBS program confirmed that it was in fact the same guitar. Dylan, however, challenged the assertion, then allowed the guitar to go to auction in July.
The History Detectives episode featuring the Stratocaster aired in September 2012. PBS is relaunching its hit program as History Detectives: Special Investigation in summer 2014.