Paul McCartney searching for guitar missing since 1969

The missing bass is the one that Paul McCartney played at the Top Ten Club in Hamburg in 1961, at the Cavern in Liverpool and on those first Abbey Road recordings. File photo: Ian West/PA

Former Beatle Paul McCartney is hoping to be reunited with an electric bass guitar he lost more than 50 years ago.

Nick Wass of guitar manufacturers, Karl Höfner GmbH & Co KG, said he is helping with the search for the guitar which could be worth up to €12m.

“It’s a Hofner 500/1, he bought it in 1961 when the Beatles were unknown. They were playing in Hamburg… [and] it disappeared in 1969 and we don’t know how or where or what happened. We presume it was stolen.” 

Mr Wass said that the 81-year-old musician is still “emotionally attached” to the standard violin bass. He says it does have one noticeable feature that could help identify it.

“It was the first left-handed violin bass ever made — they made it especially for him, even though he was still unknown. So, it was special for that respect," he told Newstalk

Recently, Mr Wass met up with Paul McCartney who told him that he still thinks about what happened to the guitar.

“He brought the matter up. He said, ‘Do you know anything about my lost bass?' I didn’t. And then I thought, ‘Let’s start something to try and get this thing back to Paul McCartney’ — because he is still emotionally attached to it, it being his first bass guitar.

"I would guess, if it’s still around, that it’s probably in somebody’s collection because serious collectors of guitars tend to covet instruments like this. So, my guess is that it might be there but, hey, it could be in your attic at home, folks."

Paul McCartney (left) and John Lennon on stage in London during a recording session for the BBC radio programme 'Easy Beat' in 1963. File photo: PA

Anyone with any information on the missing guitar is asked to go to a special website set up in relation to the search.

“There’s lots of Hofner violin basses out there that have been made in the last 60 years, for sure. What I’d recommend is we have a website TheLostBass.com Go there first and have a look at the pictures we put there about what we’re looking for.” 

The missing bass is the one that McCartney played at the Top Ten Club in Hamburg in 1961, at the Cavern in Liverpool and on those first Abbey Road recordings.

It is the bass you hear on “Love me Do,” “She Loves You,” and “Twist and Shout.” McCartney was an unknown teenager when he bought the guitar for just £30 in a shop in Hamburg in 1961.