A guitar used by pop star Alvin Stardust to collect the autographs of some of music’s biggest names is now worth more than £1 million (Dh6.16 million).
Stardust, 71, was 12 when he was given the instrument in 1955 by his father, who had bought it for £1 and two shillings.
The youngster took it to a Buddy Holly and the Crickets concert in Doncaster where the band signed it — and the starstruck teen dubbed the guitar ‘Peggy Sue’ after Holly’s song.
Those first autographs started a tradition and the guitar has since been signed by, among others, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Sir Cliff Richard and has been valued at £1.25 million.
Stardust, who enjoyed a No 1 hit in 1974 with Jealous Mind, has no plans to sell but when a friend said he could get a decent price for it, he had it valued.
He said: “When my dad gave me that guitar, little did we know, after all these years, what a story it would be able to tell.”
The singer collected many of the signatures when he was a teenager performing as Shane Fenton and the Fentones in the early 1960s.
He said: “I hung around stage doors schmoozing until they let me in. Since I always took Peggy Sue, they often assumed I was part of the act and just ushered me through.”
Explaining how he got the autographs of The Beatles at the Albert Hall in 1963, he said: “I knew a security chap called Len. He whisked my guitar away and a few minutes later came back with all the boys’ autographs on it.
“They didn’t know it was mine, but later that night John and Paul, who I knew a bit, came up to me and said, ‘You’re from London — where can we meet some birds?’”
Rick Zsigmond, owner of Vintage Guitar Emporium in West London, which valued the instrument, said: “The fact it tells the story of rock from its very infancy and in such a wonderful way is what makes it so valuable.”
