In his lifetime, Indiana Colts owner and CEO Jim Irsay amassed a collection of musical relics that likely made the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum and Hard Rock Café green with envy. Now some of the late football honcho’s most prized possessions — Ringo Starr’s drums, Kurt Cobain’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” guitar, David Gilmour’s Black Strat — are going to auction. The sale follows Irsay’s death in May of last year.
The Jim Irsay Collection, which includes more than 400 items, will be on view as part of a free, public exhibition at Christie’s New York auction house from March 6 – 12. Well-heeled rock enthusiasts will be able to bid on the collection during four auctions held between March 7 – 17.
“This decision [to auction the collection] was not made lightly, but with deep reflection and love for the legacy he built,” Irsay’s family said in an October statement, according to The New York Times. “Our dad was a passionate collector, driven not by possession, but by a profound appreciation for the beauty, history, and cultural resonance of the items he curated. From iconic instruments to handwritten lyrics by legends to rare historical artifacts and documents, each piece in the collection tells a story — and he was always so excited to share those stories with the world. Now, we believe it’s time for a new life for the collection, and it’s our sincerest hope that these artifacts find future stewards who understand and cherish their significance.”
“He loved the fact that he had them, but … he loved having it so he could share it,” Larry Hall, the chairman and chief curator of the Irsay Collection, told the Times. “He thought it was cool to own it; he wouldn’t use the word ‘owned.’ He would say, ‘be a steward.’ Be a steward of the horse, you’re a steward of the artifacts.” Isrsay would often loan out artifacts and sometimes hosted his own “traveling museum.”
One of the items that will find a new steward via the auction is the Ludwig drum kit Starr played on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. (Christie’s values it between $1 million and $2 million.) Another is Cobain’s Fender Mustang, featured in the “Teen Spirit” video and on Nirvana’s Nevermind and In Utero albums; it could fetch between $2.5 million and $5 million. There’s also Jerry Garcia’s Tiger ($1 million to $2 million) and John Lennon’s 1963 Gretsch Chet Atkins guitar ($600,000 to $800,000), used while writing the Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” and “Rain.”
The family is also parting ways with Irsay’s favorite instrument, Gilmour’s Black Strat, which Christie’s expends to garner between $2 million and $4 million. Irsay spent $3,975,000 on the instrument when Gilmour auctioned it in 2019. Gilmour had purchased the instrument in 1970 in New York and modified it greatly; he used it to record all of Pink Floyd’s albums from that year through 1983. You can hear it on The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall, among other albums.
“If I don’t get the guitar, I’ll look like a jackass,” Irsay told Rolling Stone in 2019 about why he bought it. “But I love Strats, and this is the Strat. This is the one that was the signature guitar for those incredible Floyd leads.”
The auction will also feature the sale of Elton John’s Steinway, Eric Clapton’s “The Fool” SG, and George Harrison’s Gibson SG. Other, non-musical highlights of the Irsay Collection going to auction include Secretariat’s saddle, Muhammad Ali’s “Rumble in the Jungle” championship belt, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road scroll, Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky script (with notes), and Mike Myers’ Austin Powers glasses.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale will benefit organizations Irsay, a mental health advocate, supported.
