Get your hands on Mark Knopfler’s guitars

Across the 90-odd years of its existence, the electric guitar has been the defining instrument of popular music. Anyone yearning to make records and tour the world will, at some point, have found themselves gazing at racks of guitars in the local music shop with a mixture of intrigue and wonder. Mark Knopfler, who made his name as the singer and songwriter with Dire Straits and is today considered a musical legend, was no exception. 

As a boy, he would press his nose up against the window of a guitar shop on Tyneside. “I managed to pluck up the courage to take down this Spanish guitar from the wall,” he told the music journalist Paul Sexton in conversation at auction house Christie’s earlier this month. “There were a couple of Geordie boys working in the shop, and one of them said, ‘If you drop that, I’ll drop you.’”

At that instant, Knopfler’s experience diverged from everyone else’s, in that he devoted his life to the instrument, developed his own unique finger-picking style, became incredibly proficient, sold millions of records and worked with people such as Bob Dylan, Elton John and BB King. Crucially, he also found himself able to buy many of the instruments he once yearned for.

A selection of around 120 of these guitars and amplifiers are being placed on sale by Christie’s on 31 January, including the custom-made instrument he played alongside Eric Clapton at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert at Wembley Stadium in 1988 (Lot 17, estimate £6,000 to £8,000). These aren’t just instruments – they’re pieces of cultural history.

“Collections like this don’t come along often, that’s for sure,” says Amelia Walker, head of private & iconic collections at Christie’s. “This is a cathartic clear-out of some really special instruments that he doesn’t play any more, either because they don’t suit the songs he’s writing, or because he’s got favourites that he prefers. He really wants these guitars to be played, to find new songs and new adventures.” In addition, a quarter of the proceeds from the sale will be divided equally between the British Red Cross, Tusk and Brave Hearts of the North East.

Knopfler describes the guitars as characters waiting to be cast in the right role, and his back catalogue is full of examples of specific sounds played on carefully chosen instruments, pouring scorn on the idea that a guitar is merely a guitar. The bright, ringing sound heard on “Sultans Of Swing” (1978) renewed massive interest in the Fender Stratocaster, and his red signature model takes pride of place in the collection (Lot 92, estimate £4,000 to £6,000). Meanwhile, the iconic intro to “Money For Nothing” (1985) gets much of its tonal quality from the guitar Knopfler used, a 1983 Gibson Les Paul Standard ’59 Reissue (Lot 10, estimate £10,000 to £15,000). The auction also includes, for good measure, the original 1959 Les Paul it was modelled on (Lot 42, estimate £300,000 to £500,000), which Knopfler played at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 on his Kill To Get Crimson tour. “A guitar like this will spoil you,” Knopfler has said of the instrument, adding: “Why should these combinations of wood and wire have this mystery to them?”

Many people share Knopfler’s fascination with that mystery, not least those lining up to bid at the auction. Kerry Keane, Christie’s specialist consultant for musical instruments, refutes the idea that these guitars will become museum pieces rather than continue their musical lives. “I have clients who’ll be bidding, who also bid on our Nile Rodgers and David Gilmour collections, and they do play them,” he says. “One client runs a successful construction company and is a very talented guitarist; he owns three different guitars from Eric Clapton, and performs with them regularly.”

The instruments, of course, don’t do all the work. Knopfler’s skill as a player contributed hugely to the sound he made with Dire Straits – a uniquely lyrical style in an era largely defined by the anything-goes spirit of punk and new wave. But the best guitarists know a good guitar when they see one, and as Knopfler said, with some emotion, in that conversation at Christie’s, they can become companions, even soulmates. “I remember [American guitarist] Chet Atkins telling me that a guitar is a friend for life,” he said. “I’ve had plenty of time to think about that since, and it is… it’s a wonderful companion to you.”

The Mark Knopfler Guitar Collection is on show at Christie’s, London SW1 (christies.com) until 30 January. The auction takes place there live at 1pm on 31 January