Garcia/Tiger #6. Rich people buying stuff that ought to be off limits !



Tiger

Notable owner: Jerry Garcia
Price at auction: $957,500

The last guitar the Grateful Dead frontman played in public, it was designed by luthier Doug Irwin using the “hippie sandwich” tradition of layering exotic woods with maple. The 13.5-pounder, which he dubbed Tiger, was Garcia’s main guitar through the 1980s.

In 2002, the billionaire owner of the Indianapolis Colts, James Irsay, bought the instrument at auction in what Irsay called “a 15 rounder” for $850,000, plus a $107,500 buyer’s premium. “I made the determination that I'd rather have Tiger than all the other Jerry stuff in the world,” Irsay later told Forbes. “For me it was the centerpiece.”


www.cnbc.com/id/47723379/Rock_Roll_s_Most_Collectible_Guitars

Tiger is my favorite!!!

It just sucks that its not on display somewhere or kept in the Grateful Dead Family. But it is my understanding that in Jerry's will he left the guitars to Irwin. And apparently the GD tried to fight it but Irwin got lucky and was given Tiger back along with another one. He sold them both.

Hey man, this is great stuff, thanks for sharing. Hard to stop people with a lot of money from buying seemingly sacred stuff.

Small world story - so I worked for an insurance broker from 1991 to 1994 and we had Paul Allen as a client. I remember the day we got the call saying he had bought the Jimi Strat from Woodstock. It was feakin cool, especially cause Jimi was one of my first real love(s) with a guitar player. In fact, we would get calls almost daily from his "people" letting us know he had bought this, that or something else that Jimi once owned.

That's cool. I don't begrudge the rich for having money as long as they came by it honestly and it's theirs to do with what they wish.

I do wish some things were not for sale including "spiritual" things like Garcia's guitars Suppose it was ultimately his family's decision to make a profit from it as sad as that may be. Jimi would go into that category too.

These things ought to be put in public places and worshiped by future generations like the pyramids or red rocks or (name your sacredness). Actually, maybe Tiger ought to be on display at Red Rocks:) That would be the coolest.

I agree man, there are so many things that should be shared with the public and enjoyed corporately (meaning everyone) versus all alone in a room by itself for few to enjoy or even worse, locked up in a vault where no one gets to see it.

Though clearly history and human nature have illustrated this is an ideal very hard to achieve.

During that time in my professional career as broker, I saw A LOT of really cool stuff. Like an orginal portrait of George Washington from 1778, a Lola race car from the 24 hours at Le Mans or a number of Degas/Renoir/Matisse paintings (on Paul's first yacht, only 150 feet, now its like 400 feet).

I would actually argue that perhaps one better then to have it on display is to have someone actually playing it. Yes, that guitar was meant to be played, and I would not find sacrilegious to see someone else play it other then Jerry.

And I would hazard a guess thats what Jerry would say too.........let it be played. Just like his famous quote on Letterman when asked by Dave about tapers he says "we let them have it when we are done with it".

my understanding was that irwin had to sell the guitars because he couldn't afford to keep them (would have been taxed on the estimated value and would have owed tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on the taxes)...how's that for fucked up

spring mountain high wrote:


Oh man, that's horrible. Dude MADE THEM ! And the feds want to tax them. Just shows nothing is beyond the government taking a share. What is wrong with that picture ? Everything.

Reminds of the scene in Godfather Part II where the chief neighborhood thug sits down with Don Corleone (pre-Don, Robert DeNiro) and explains how whatever he earns he MUST give a share to his overlord or else. DeNiro thinks otherwise and in a later scene WHACKS the dude ! Sweet justice. I love that part of the film.

Waiting for that day to come in America again ! May never see it and or it may be a boiling revolution but, boy, there are some things worth dying for !