Julien’s Auctions’ annual Music Icons collection sale, which also includes Kurt Cobain’s MTV Unplugged Martin acoustic, now receives a long-lost guitar once owned by Prince, the famed Blue Angel Cloud custom guitar.
The guitar Prince commissioned by himself is expected to fetch between $400,000 and $600,000. John Woodland, a Paisley Park conservationist and Cloud expert, examined the instrument via a FaceTime call he had with the current anonymous owner Prince gifted the guitar in the 90s, and after deeming it to be real, the guitar headed to Julien’s Auctions where a CT scan confirmed its authenticity. “It’s the most significant Prince guitar that’ll ever come up for auction,” Julien’s Auctions founder and president Darren Julien said in a statement.
The notorious electric blue guitar appeared in numerous performances from 1984 to 1993, including the “Purple Rain” and “Parade” tours, his Saturday Night Live performance of “Electric Chair” in 1989 and the music videos of “Cream” and “Get Off.”