November 29 marks the 5th anniversary since the passing of one of my favourite musicians, George Harrison. Coincidently, on November 30th Cooper Owen Rock Memorabilia will auction a Maton MS-500 Mastersound guitar owned and played by George during the summer of 1963.

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This MS-500 has two volume and two tone controls, three-way selector switch and Bigsby tremolo, and comes in its original case.

According to Cooper Owen Auctions, “George borrowed this guitar from Barretts Music Shop in Manchester around the time The Beatles appeared at the Odeon in Manchester on 30th May 1963 whilst his Gretsch Country Gentleman was undergoing repairs. The then Manager of the shop, Brian Higham, is documented as having confirmed that Neil Aspinall brought the Country Gentleman to the shop for repair and that the Maton was given to him as George’s temporary replacement – he recalls it was the first Country Gentleman he had seen and he carried out the repairs on it himself.”

“The Maton was then returned to Barretts when The Beatles next performed in Manchester, possibly during their August performance at the Playhouse Theatre. Later Roy Barber, guitarist with Dave Berry’s band The Cruisers, swapped his Fender Stratocaster for the Maton and was told by Barretts that it was the same one Harrison had used, photographs from the period included in a copy of a 1983 Record Collector article which accompanies this lot about Dave Berry featuring images of Ron with both his Strat and the Maton (in 1964) which accompanies this lot corroborate this story. Roy Barber owned the guitar until 2000.”

The guitar is estimated to sell between £ 100,000-120,000

Check it out at http://www.cooperowen.com/asp/fullcatalogue.asp?t=96923&salelot=2162+++++284+&refno=+++19809&