Rick Nielsen is downsizing the guitar room. The Cheap Trick guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has teamed up with Julien’s Auctions for “The Rick Nielsen Collection,” a benefit sale of guitars, cars, stage-worn clothing, awards and other items from his personal archive. It happens Oct. 24 at 10 a.m. CT / 11 a.m. ET, live at the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum inside the Historic Nashville Municipal Auditorium. A portion of the proceeds goes to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
The collection spans more than five decades and includes the guitars behind Nielsen‘s sound as well as personal pieces gathered along the way. Among the instruments he has owned are two 1958 Gibson Explorers and a 1963 Guild Merle Travis, one of only three made. He also has three custom five-neck guitars, and one of them, a stage-played 2004 Hamer “Five Neck” Korina, is going up for public sale for the first time.
The habit started early. Nielsen‘s parents ran a music store, and he began on drums. After seeing The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, he switched his attention to guitars and never looked back. He paid $65 for his first Les Paul, a 1955 Gold Top, and he still owns it.
Nielsen said: “I couldn’t sing or dance, but I was big into songwriting, and I tried to put everything I had into that. I never wanted to be like anybody else—I just wanted to be me. I knew I was never going to be a virtuoso, so I ended up being a ‘medium-oso.’
“I started out with one guitar, and over the years the collection just kept growing. It seemed like a good time to sell some of it—you can’t take it with you. When it’s all over, hopefully I’ll still have one guitar.”
On the charity side, he added, “A portion of the proceeds will go to St. Jude because I knew Danny and Marlo Thomas, and they’re great people doing really good stuff. I’m honored to support them and hopefully encourage others to do so as well.”
Julien’s Auctions‘ Lou Robinson, director of music business development, said, “Rick has created and curated an incredible collection that ranges from world famous to infamous.
“These are items that have been played and worn on stages around the world, with some even going on to live in museums. I am so proud that Rick has entrusted Julien’s to tell his story and give fans the opportunity to own a piece of his legacy.”
As the songwriter and guitarist at the center of Cheap Trick, Nielsen wrote “Surrender,” “I Want You to Want Me,” “Dream Police,” “She’s Tight” and “If You Want My Love.” Since the 1970s, his guitar work, his mix of hard rock and power pop, and his oversized stage presence have carried the band from Rockford, Ill., to international fame, with the breakthrough at Japan’s Budokan as the centerpiece.
Highlights
The top lot is a stage-played 1975 Hamer Standard electric guitar in natural finish, serial #0004. Built for Nielsen, it was his main guitar on stages worldwide from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, and Hamer used it in an ad featuring him. The link between Nielsen and luthier Paul Hamer goes back to 1973, when Nielsen sold him a sunburst Les Paul Standard that Hamer later flipped to help fund Hamer Guitars. In 1975, Nielsen wanted an original Gibson Explorer but couldn’t find one, so he asked Hamer to build him one with a flame maple top. The build took a while, so Hamerlent him his own guitar, serial #0000, in the meantime. Nielsen liked it enough to buy both. This guitar can be seen in performances including Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert on Nov. 10, 1977, the Budokan show on April 28, 1978, Chicagofest in 1981 and Rockpalast in Germany on Oct. 15, 1983. The estimate is $200,000 to $300,000.
Next is the custom 2004 Hamer Five Neck Korina in natural finish. Nielsen played it live from the 2004 Another State of Mind benefit show at Metro in Chicago through at least 2013, when Cheap Trick celebrated the Budokan 35th anniversary at the John Varvatos store in New York City’s old CBGB space. It also shows up in an episode of Gibson Guitars’ The Collection series. The design came from Nielsen‘s original plan for a six-neck guitar that would spin like a wheel while he played, and he scaled that back to “only” five necks. It comes with a large black road case. The estimate is $175,000 to $200,000.
Then there are the vehicles. A 1955 Ford Thunderbird he owns and drives carries an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000. Nielsen told Goldmine, “In 1978 I bought a 1955 Ford Thunderbird which I still have today. That was my first extravagance.” The car was displayed in Rockford during “Rick’s Picks: A Lifelong Affair With Guitars & Music” at the Burpee Museum of Natural History in 2012 and 2013.
A 1958 Ford Ranchero, estimated at $40,000 to $60,000, has auxiliary gauges under the dash, a column-mounted tachometer and an “Interceptor Special” badge on the glovebox door. The bed wears a checkered tonneau cover in the Cheap Trick style.
A 1989 John Deere tractor with a checkered paint job and custom graphics comes with a vintage snowplow decorated with Cheap Trick artwork. It was also part of the Burpee Museum exhibition, and the estimate is $20,000 to $30,000.
On the guitar side, a 1963 Fender Stratocaster in three-tone sunburst with a mint green pickguard and its original case is estimated at $40,000 to $60,000. A 1984 Gibson Les Paul XPL in sunburst, a Les Paul body paired with an Explorer headstock, is estimated at $15,000 to $20,000. The design came from Canadian guitarist Aldo Nova during a visit to Gibson’s Kalamazoo, Mich., plant in 1982 or 1983, and Gibson later released an XPL series in the mid-1980s.
The paper and wardrobe lots include six sheets of handwritten lyrics and studio notes for Cheap Trick‘s third album, Heaven Tonight, estimated at $3,000 to $4,000. A hand-knit sweater worn on the front and back covers of One on One(1982) is estimated at $1,000 to $2,000. Nielsen also wore it in the “If You Want My Love” video and in a 1982 MTV interview. A vintage Detroit Tigers cap from the One on One cover and its promo interviews is estimated at $700 to $900. The flipped-up bill is central to Nielsen‘s “Clown Prince of Rock & Roll” persona, which set Cheap Trick apart from the brooding guitar heroes of the 1970s.
Bidding
Registration is required and can be done online beforehand or in person on auction day. Bids can be placed online, by phone through an auction house representative, in the room or by absentee bid. For absentee forms or questions, call 310-836-1818 or email info@juliensauctions.com. Julien’s also accepts several cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The event takes place at the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum, 401 Gay Street, Nashville, Tenn. The museum was founded by Joe Chambers and Linda Chambers in 2006, moved to the Municipal Auditorium in 2013 and houses a GRAMMY Gallery. It exists to honor musicians of every genre by displaying the instruments used on famous recordings, and it also educates visitors about the players behind the “soundtracks of their lives.”
Music journalist and author Ira Robbins once summed up Nielsen this way: “If Rick Nielsen weren’t one of rock and roll’s most colorful and accomplished characters in real life, there’s no way to have dreamed him up. A homemade cartoon figure who is also a down-to-earth family man. A superlative guitarist who makes it look like a goof onstage.
“An inveterate joker whose best-known song is a sincere request for love. You think it’s all an image, a pose? Spend a few minutes with the man and you’ll find out just how wrong you are.”
The post RICK NIELSEN Of CHEAP TRICK Cleans Out The Vault: Guitars Worth Six Figures Hit The Auction Block appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.