Never mind the rumoured $500 million sale of guitar maker Fender. If just one of its guitars is touched by the hand of God, it can raise $1 million by itself.
Eric Clapton?s fans in the 1960s proclaimed he was God. Now his treasured ?Blackie? Fender Stratocaster has fetched $959,500 at Christie?s in New York ? the record for a guitar.
It was only expected to attract $150,000 but started a bidding war. So who could afford to pay so much for one guitar? One of the Goldman Sachs bankers said to be looking for a buyer for Fender? No, in the end it went to The Guitar Center chain.
Clapton first played Blackie in 1973 but retired it in 1991 as it was wearing out. That and other guitars in the auction raised $7.4 million for his Crossroads addiction clinic.
Fender, privately owned, has declined to comment on a possible sale.