Clapton guitar sells for €790,000

Rock star Eric Clapton’s treasured "Blackie" became the most expensive guitar to sell at auction today, fetching a staggering €790,000.

The classic Fender Stratocaster, which Clapton once said had "become part of me" was one of 88 instruments sold by the music legend and his friends in New York.

Blackie, which accompanied Clapton on stage throughout the 1970s and 1980s, sold for well above the maximum estimate of €125,000.

Auction house Christie’s in New York told of a "thundering two-hour sale, carried by waves of fierce bidding and outbursts of devotional excitement".

In all, more than €6m was raised for the Crossroads Centre addiction treatment clinic, which Clapton helped set up in Antigua in 1997.

Immediately after the sale, Clapton, who is currently touring the US, said: “I am thrilled at the result which is going to be of enormous help to us in achieving our long term aims at the centre.”

Blackie was bought by America’s Guitar Centre, Christie’s said.

Parting with Blackie will be a wrench for Clapton, whose hits include Layla and Tears in Heaven.

The instrument became synonymous with Clapton’s sound during the 1970s and 1980s.

In an interview with Guitar Player magazine in 1985, he said: “I feel that that guitar has become part of me.”

Clapton first played Blackie on stage at the Rainbow Theatre, in Finsbury Park, London, on January 13, 1973 at a concert organised by Pete Townshend to encourage Clapton's recovery from heroin addiction.

From that moment the guitar toured with him in the US, Europe and the far east.

The last known occasion that Blackie was played on stage was for one number during the 1991 Royal Albert Hall shows.