John Lennon‘s official Instagram account posted the following series of quotes. The quotes recall the tale of the time that Lennon lost his 1962 Gibson J-160E guitar, which as instumentologist Andy Babiuk explains, was unknowingly switched by his fellow The Beatles bandmate – George Harrison. This John Lennon awful ‘mad drunk’ video was just revealed.
Mal Evans who severed as The Beatles’ roadie and personal assistant employed to the group from 1963 until their break-up in 1970 recalled: “The worst of all was at the Finsbury Empire in London, when I lost John’s guitar,” he said. “It was one he’d had for years as well. It just disappeared. ‘Where’s my Jumbo?’ he said. I didn’t know – it’s still a mystery.”⠀
John Lennon’s widow revealed this beach swimsuit photo. Lennon himself said about the matter:
“George and I often took a jumbo with us, so nobody noticed until the end of the season that one was missing. A week or two afterwards I asked Mal where he’d put my jumbo. It was only then that we realized the guitar had been pinched, at Finsbury Park. No, I never got it back.”⠀
Whereas Andy Babiuk, acclaimed instumentologist had this to say: “At some point between September 1962, when they acquired their Gibsons, and December 1963, Lennon and Harrison had, in fact, swapped their guitars. Perhaps it was because of playability or sound preference. Or maybe, because the instruments were identical, the guitars were unknowingly switched, and neither Lennon nor Harrison noticed … or cared. So Lennon’s Gibson guitar, serial number 73157, that went missing in 1963 was actually the one that had been registered to Harrison under the hire-purchase deal made at Rushworth’s music shop. And the J-160E guitar that Harrison still owned decades later, serial number 73161, was the guitar that was logged to Lennon on the original hire-purchase document.”
The ‘found’ guitar sold in November 2015 for $2.41m (£1.6m) at an auction at Julien’s in Beverly Hills, California.
Find out more about this and other instruments in ‘Beatles Gear – The Ultimate Edition’ by renowned instrumentologist Andy Babiuk. John Lennon revealed who Paul McCartney ripped off.
