http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&cid=boroff&sid=aQbrhuzINEsYDec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- A 1964 Gibson guitar that George Harrison and John Lennon of The Beatles used on ``The White Album'' and ``Revolver'' will be auctioned Dec. 17 in a New York sale of rock and roll and entertainment collectibles.
Christie's International expects to sell the cherry- finish electric guitar for about $500,000. Harrison used it from 1966 to 1969 during various Beatles appearances and recording sessions. It's been on loan to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. The entire sale of 400 lots is estimated to bring as much as $3 million.
The auction house expects about $400,000 for a 1959 Gibson Les Paul electric guitar Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones used on the Ed Sullivan Show. For collectors of a different stripe, a book report for school by chanteuse Britney Spears is valued at $800 to $1,000.
Christie's calls the auction the largest ever of entertainment memorabilia. Darren Julien of Los Angeles- based Julien's, who helped assemble the items, pointed to recent record sales of instruments as evidence of the lucre of rock and roll collecting. In June, the Guitar Center Inc., a publicly traded Westlake Village, California-based instrument retailer, paid $959,500 for a guitar owned by Eric Clapton. It was a record for an electric guitar.
``A lot of Wall Street guys look at it as a better investment than some stocks,'' said Julien, 35.
Madonna's Veil
The items are on view at Christie's Rockefeller Center galleries, starting tomorrow through Dec. 16. They relate to everyone from Mary Pickford to Madonna. A photo of Pickford, a silent screen star, is valued at $200 to $300. The 1941 best picture Academy Award for ``How Green Was My Valley'' is valued at $50,000 to $60,000. Christie's expects a credit card issued to Steven Tyler of the band Aerosmith to fetch $2,000 to $3,000. A veil Madonna wore from the 1984 ``Like a Virgin'' video is assigned $2,000 to $2,500.
Also on sale: a 1991 letter valued at $12,000 to $14,000, that Kurt Cobain, of Nirvana, wrote to Courtney Love, from a hotel in Sheffield, England.
``Out of all the times I've been on acid, I've never been able to hallucinate with such repetitive control,'' wrote Cobain, who committed suicide in 1994. ``I'm hallucinating at will, over and over again,'' he added.
The provenance of the Spears book report is unclear. Its origins date to sometime in the 1980s, according to the catalog. Written on loose-leaf paper, it's about ``Raymond's Run,'' a children's book by Toni Cade Bambara and Tony Bambara.
``The value of that book report depends on the choices she makes as an artist,'' Julien said. ``Everyone wants a piece of a legend.''
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