Dire Straits icon Mark Knopfler’s guitars sell for more than £8million at auction

Dire Straits icon Mark Knopfler‘s guitars have sold for more than £8million at auction which was much higher than had been estimated.

More than 120 of Knopfler’s guitars and amps – including the 1983 Gibson Les Paul used to record ‘Money For Nothing’ and ‘Brothers In Arms’, which was also played at the iconic Live Aid concert in 1985 – were sold with 25% of the proceeds being donated to various charities, including the Red Cross, wildlife advocates Tusk, and children’s non-profit, Brave Hearts of the North East.

Per BBC, the auction – which took place in London at Christie’s on Wednesday, January 31 – saw bidders and buyers from 61 countries, with a final total including buyer’s premium, confirmed at £8,840,160.

The iconic musician was able to set a new auction record with his 1959 Vintage Gibson Les Paul Standard which was sold for £693,000, making it the highest sale for that specific guitar model.

“I am so pleased that these much-loved instruments will find new players and new songs as well as raising money for charities that mean a lot to me,” Knopfler said of the auction (per BBC).

He continued: “It has been heart-warming to witness how much these guitars mean to so many people and I am also pleased that they will continue to give joy to many through the songs recorded over the years with me.

Other pieces that were sold include a 1988 Pensa-Suhr MK-1 that Knopfler played at Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday tribute concert at Wembley Stadium and his Red Schecter Telecaster, which the musician purchased in 1984 to record the hit track ‘Walk Of Life’.

1988 Pensa-Suhr MK-1 was sold for £504,000 and the Red Schecter Telecaster was sold for £415,800, which was a couple hundred thousand more than their estimated prices of £8,000 and £6,000.

Speaking to the BBC back in November, the 74-year-old expressed that with age, he finally feels at peace with downsizing his guitar collection. “I’m looking now at about 20 guitars that I use to make records and there are at least 100 other ones that aren’t going to get played,” he said. “We’ve had great times together, so I am sad to see some of them go – but I’ve got enough left to play. More than enough.”

Knopfler, alongside his brother David, drummer Pick Withers, and bassist John Illsley formed Dire Straits in 1977 before releasing several successful albums, including their 1978 debut, which included classic rock staple ‘Sultans of Swing’, and their 1985 LP ‘Brothers In Arms’, the UK’s eighth best-selling album of all time. They have sold over 100 million records globally, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.

Dire Straits briefly split in 1988 before reforming to release one more studio album, 1991’s ‘On Every Street’. They permanently disbanded in 1995, after a total of six records.

Recently, Illsley expressed that while the quartet continues to be offered large sums of money for a reunion, they remain uninterested in reforming. Speaking about the band’s former manager Paul Crockford, he quipped: “Every time we have lunch, [he] says to me, ‘I wish people would stop offering me huge amounts of money to put [Dire Straits] back together.”

In 2008, Illsley revealed that though he had approached Knopfler with the possibility of a reunion, he ultimately declined. Illsley stated: “I think we’ve definitely got one more tour left in us, and probably another record too. [But Knopfler’s] doing different kinds of music now. He’s doing incredibly well as a solo artist, so hats off to him. He’s having a perfectly good time doing what he’s doing.”

Following Dire Straits’ disbandment, Knopfler pursued a solo career, where he experimented with folk and roots music in albums including 2004’s ‘Shangri-La’ and 2006’s ‘All The Roadrunning’, a duets album with Emmylou Harris. He is currently working on his tenth solo album.