Kurt Cobain guitar sold for $100,000

SEATTLE: A smashed guitar from the late grunge rocker Kurt Cobain has been sold to an unidentified private collector for $100,000.

Helen Hall, a broker in England, says it’s the second-highest known price for an item of Cobain memorabilia. The seller was punk rocker Sluggo of The Grannies and Hullabaloo.

The sale was confirmed on December 23 by Jacob McMurray, senior curator at the Experience Music Project in Seattle, where the taped-up Fender Mustang guitar in sunburst finish was displayed for a time.

“It’s a really cool-looking guitar because it’s smashed and held together with duct tape and Kurt Cobain wrote on it,” McMurray said. Sluggo said he traded a working guitar for the smashed one during the first US tour of Nirvana. McMurray said Nirvana, living hand-to-mouth, was on a tour in New Jersey when Cobain smashed the guitar on stage and went looking for one to play at his next gig.