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Smashing a guitar onstage while recording the seminal rock album of the 90s is totally rock star. Gluing the guitar back together and selling it for over half a million dollars at a fancy auction house is slightly less so. Nevertheless, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's smashed Fender Stratocaster from his days recording the band's 1991 masterpiece “Nevermind” just shattered expectations for how much it's worth — after the guitar fetched $595,900 at Julien's Auctions in New York City this weekend from an undisclosed buyer.
According to Julien's Auctions, the guitar — after being pieced back together — was gifted while Nirvana was touring in 1992 from Cobain to fellow rock star and Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan (who, like Cobain, has since passed away). The fact that it was a gift is clearly evident from the message Cobain left on the guitar, which has some vintage Cobain humor and intentional typos thrown in: “Hell-o Mark. Love, your Pal Kurdt Kobain washed up Rock Star”.
The guitar is also signed by Nirvana's other two band members, drummer Dave Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic.
Nirvana, one of the biggest rock bands of all time, was the face of the Seattle grunge music scene of the 1990s. Kurt Cobain was one of the most beloved rock stars of his era, and his shocking death by fatally self-inflicted gunshot wound at his Seattle home in 1994 was devastating global news. He was only 27 and at the peak of his music career at the time.
The fact that his guitar just sold for more than ten times its expected value at auction shows just how revered Kurt Cobain remains today.