The legendary Höfner bass guitar is now in your hands Paul McCartney in 1961. The then-beginning musician bought it for £30 (in today’s money it’s about £800). He used it throughout his career with The Beatles, and after the sessions for the band’s last album, “Let It Be”, was stolen. It was around 1972.
For over 52 years, no one knew what was happening to the missing instrument, which was extremely important to the artist. The Lost Bass Project, established last year, aimed to find the Höfner 500/1 or find out what happened to it. Meanwhile, quite unexpectedly, an entry appeared online from a student who admitted that he had inherited the guitar and had already handed it over to the former Beatle.
“To my friends and family, I inherited this item that was returned to Paul McCartney. Please share this news,” he wrote Ruaidhri Guest on the website
Paul McCartney himself confirmed that the guitar had been found on his website. “Following the launch of the Lost Bass Project last year, Paula’s 1961 Paul Höfner 500/1 bass guitar, which was stolen in 1972, has been returned,” he wrote. The guitar has already been checked by the manufacturer and everyone is sure that it is the same instrument. “Paul is incredibly grateful to everyone involved,” we read.
This unusual-looking instrument has become an inseparable element of Paul McCartney’s image. As a left-handed musician, McCartney initially fell in love with its symmetrical shape. Recently, an action to find the instrument was initiated thanks to the cooperation of the director of the Höfner company, Nick Wass and the musician himself.
“I had worked closely with Paul McCartney’s band over the years, and when Paul and I met, we were talking about his first Höfner bass and where it might be today. Paul said to me, ‘Hey, if you work at Höfner, could you help find my bass?’ And that’s what started this great hunt,” he said in an interview.
It so happens that the manufacturer could not refuse this offer. After all, McCartney unwittingly became the instrument’s greatest ambassador and is why Höfner bass guitars are still so popular. During his career, the musician already had four guitars of this brand, and he still plays one of them.
Nick Wass admits that the instrument is actually priceless today, equating its value to “works by Van Gogh or Picasso” than to the instrument itself. “This is the bass Paul played in Hamburg, at the Cavern Club and at Abbey Road,” he notes.
Although the finder explained that he had inherited the guitar, it is still unknown how it came into his hands. For years, it was rumored that the guitar had been stolen from a closet at EMI’s London studios or had gone missing in the basement of the band’s Savile Row offices. She was last seen in reality a few years before her official disappearance, i.e. on January 30, 1969, during the legendary rooftop concert.