Kurt Cobain’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ Guitar Going Up for Auction
Nirvana fans will have the opportunity to own one of frontman Kurt Cobain’s most beloved guitars when the instrument goes up for auction in New York City later this month.
The guitar — a 1969 Fender Competition Mustang in a color known as Lake Placid Blue — is currently part of Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay’s extensive collection of rock memorabilia, and will be auctioned off to benefit the NFL team’s Kicking The Stigma mental health awareness campaign, per the Associated Press. The auction, Irsay noted, comes with full support of the Cobain estate.
Cobain famously used the guitar in the video for the band’s breakthrough single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The guitar is said to be among the musician’s favorite in his expansive collection — so much so that Cobain rarely used the guitar outside of a studio setting. (Footage from a September 1991 in-store performance in Seattle show Cobain playing the guitar for several songs, and numerous fan sites have documented the guitar’s use at a handful of gigs between the fall of 1991 and early 1993.)
The so-called “competition stripe” variants, which were available for both Mustang guitars and basses, are a much-coveted instrument among short-scale enthusiasts; original 1960s and 1970s models regularly sell for thousands of dollars.
Cobain was well-known for his devotion to Fender’s line of offset guitars — most notably the brand’s Mustang models, which the “Come As You Are” singer used regularly throughout Nirvana’s run. In the year leading up to the release of Nevermind, Cobain destroyed several Mustangs — which the band had pieced together and assembled on the cheap — on-stage during several live shows. (“We bought some necks, and took pieces of wood and cut out the bodies and put necks on — and they were completely out of tune. But we did a pretty good job,” Cobain recalled in a 1993 interview. “Those were all destroyed in one tour.”) He also exclusively played a series of four Fender Mustangs during the band’s In Utero Tour.
“Out of all the guitars in the whole world, the Fender Mustang is my favorite,” Cobain said in a 1991 interview with Guitar World. “They’re cheap and totally inefficient, and they sound like crap and are very small.”
In addition to the Fender Mustang, Cobain was frequently drawn to another Fender offset: the Jaguar. His love of both the Jaguar and the Mustang eventually led Cobain to collaborate with the Fender Custom Shop on the creation of the hybrid Jag-Stang in 1993 — a model that remains in production to this day.
Bidding will take place at the Times Square Hard Rock Cafe May 20 through 22. Fans looking to fork over their hard-earned cash to own the piece of grunge history might find themselves out of luck, however. The Associated Press reports Irsay intends to place an opening bid of $2 million on the guitar in an effort to retain its ownership. Oh well, whatever, never mind indeed.
