This Iconic Pink Floyd Instrument Just Became the Most Expensive Guitar Ever Sold at Auction

David Gilmour’s 1969 Fender Stratocaster, used on “The Dark Side of the Moon” and other famous albums, sold for a record $14.55 million

Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent

March 18, 2026

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An unnamed buyer has purchased a guitar that once belonged to David Gilmour, Pink Floyd’s lead guitarist, for $14.55 million—making it the most expensive guitar ever sold at auction. 

The black 1969 Fender Stratocaster, nicknamed the “Black Strat,” was Gilmour’s workhorse guitar. It was used on six of the band’s albums, including The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). According to the New York Times’ Francesca Regalado, it shattered the previous record for a guitar: Kurt Cobain’s Martin D-18E, which sold for $6.01 million in 2020.

The instrument was sold as part of the collection of Jim Irsay, the former owner of the Indianapolis Colts. The collection included nearly 400 pieces of sports, music, film and pop culture memorabilia.

“Lot after lot we felt like we were making history,” Julien Pradels, the president of Christie’s Americas, says in a statement.

Gilmour purchased the guitar in New York City in 1970, and it became his primary instrument by 1971, as Pink Floyd traveled through Europe, Japan and Australia for the Atom Heart Mother world tour.

It was also central to the band’s now-legendary show at an empty Pompeii amphitheater, which was recorded for the 1972 concert film Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii. The Black Strat was used on every Pink Floyd album from 1972 to 1983 and all four of Gilmour’s solo albums.

Most memorably, it produced some of the solos, riffs and rhythmic fills that helped make The Dark Side of the Moon one of the most highly regarded records of all time.

The guitar also exemplifies Gilmour’s proclivity to experiment with sound. He famously modified it many times, including changing its neck on six different occasions. New tuners, switches, pickguards and inputs were added to the guitar’s body over the years, according to Christie’s.

“I’ve always used it as a testing ground for trying all sorts of things out. It’s had a few different necks on, and it has different pickups,” Gilmour told Guitar World in 2006. “I’ve always considered that to be my bodge-up guitar that nothing is sacred on. I’ve had holes drilled in it. It’s still a good guitar.”

Pink Floyd gradually dissolved in the 1980s, and the Black Strat spent many years in retirement. From 1986 to 1997, Gilmour loaned the guitar to the Hard Rock Cafe in Dallas in exchange for a charitable donation. It returned to the stage in 2005, when the group played a reunion concert at Hyde Park in London.

During rehearsals for the show, the “guitar sound instantly ascended to what can only be described as ‘another level,’” Phil Taylor, Gilmour’s longtime guitar technician, wrote in a 2008 book about the guitar, according to Christie’s. “His body language changed, becoming animated and interacting with the guitar as if he had just discovered an old long-lost friend.”

The Black Strat was sold once before, when it fetched just under $4 million at a Christie’s auction in 2019. That sale, which featured roughly 120 guitars from Gilmour’s personal collection, was also to raise money for charity.

“You know something? For me, I can let go of it,” Gilmour told Rolling Stone’s Kory Grow in 2019. “It’s a lovely guitar. It has been on pretty much all the Pink Floyd albums through the ’70s. … but Fender [has] made replica ones that they sell, and I have two or three of those that are absolutely perfect. One of those might be my future guitar of choice or even, horror of horror, maybe I’ll even change the color.”

Christian Thorsberg | Read More

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.