NEWS
A guitar that NME gave away in collaboration with Led Zeppelin is expected to reach £50,000 at auction soon.
The guitar in question is a 1957 Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120 electric guitar, which was the prize in a competition run by the New Musical Express magazine.
The competition was held over half a century ago, and saw NME team up with Led Zeppelin legend Jimmy Page to gift the instrument to one lucky reader. It also came with a copy of the magazine, which showed the iconic guitarist holding it like a cricket bat.
Speaking to NME at the time, Page said he bought the guitar in 1972 from a shop in Nashville, Tennessee. He paid just £200 for it at the time.
Now, the guitar is set to go to auction at the Gardiner Houlgate in Corsham, Wiltshire, on September 9, and is predicted to sell for between £30,000 and £50,000.
The competition got entrants to match six guitars with their famous owners to have a chance at winning the Gretsch. Winning the competition was a man called Charles Reid, who was based in Hornsey, north London.
“Page must be mental giving away such a terrific guitar as this,” he said at the time (as per RTE). “It’s the kind of instrument that every guitar player dreams of owning but can never really afford.”
The guitar remained in Reid’s possession until 1990, when he sold it to a man named Phil O’Donoghue for £2,000. Donoghue was a guitarist in the ‘70s rock band, Wild Angels, and kept the guitar until his death earlier this year.
It is now going to auction due to a decision from his family.
Speaking about the upcoming sale, auctioneer Luke Hobbs said (via Standard): “It’s no exaggeration to say that Jimmy Page is a legendary guitarist and rock star. Very few of his guitars come up for auction, and when they do, they attract huge interest from collectors, investors and fans of Led Zeppelin.
“What’s so wonderful about this guitar is that we have the copies of the New Musical Express showing the competition and even a photo of Page giving the guitar to the winner, Charles Reid.”
Find out more about the auction here.
In other Led Zeppelin news, it was recently shared that the group’s frontman, Robert Plant, will be sharing a new album called ‘Saving Grace’ later this year. The forthcoming project will see him team up with a new band of distinguished players.
Before then, Page recently thanked fans for their “humbling and inspiring” reaction to the new IMAX documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin, and previously unseen footage of Led Zeppelin was unearthed after sitting in a drawer for 45 years.
Metallica bassist Jason Newsted says he is now “free and clear” after facing throat cancer.
The 63 year old musician, who played with the Enter Sandman legends from 1986 through 2001, has shared details of his diagnosis publicly for the first time. He explained that doctors discovered it early, and on May 8, 2025 he “underwent a procedure” to treat the condition.
Speaking on the Let There Be Talk podcast, he said: “They took a bunch of s*** outta here and then they went in with lasers this way and took a bunch of s*** out.
“So the cavern inside my head is different than it was, but we got it early. And I got my ‘free and clear’ about three weeks ago. So I beat it.”
Jason contributed to several of Metallica’s most iconic releases, including 1988’s ...And Justice For All, their self titled 1991 album, 1996’s Load, the 1997 follow up Reload, and 1998’s Garage Inc.
After going through his cancer experience, the bassist made a point to slow down and actually give himself time to recover instead of constantly pushing forward.
He explained: “I promised myself I was going to rest, and that was the first time I’ve done that in my life.
"I’m usually just on or off. And so I promised myself I was gonna take the gravity off and lay down for the right amount of hours."
The health scare also led Jason to give up smoking weed and drinking alcohol, something he admits he likely would not have done otherwise.
He added: “The great spirit got my attention and said, ‘That’s not good right now, man.’ And so it pulled me off it.
"And so now I’m more clear-headed than I’ve been in my entire adult life. And so there’s blessings within everything. The lemonade I’m making this summer, bro — mm. Sweet. Ooh.”
Jason has previously said that his unexpected departure ultimately helped Metallica continue moving forward, while James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich later admitted they struggled to process his decision at the time.
Lars told Apple Music in 2021: “Jason is the only member of Metallica who has ever left willingly. And that in itself is a statistic.
"And the resentment from James and I was just so… 'You can’t do that. You can only leave if we want you to leave'.
"And then we weren’t equipped at the time to do a deep dive into why he was leaving. So of course, now you can see 20 years later, it makes complete sense.”
