JIM IRSAY COLLECTION SUPPLEMENT
For years, the Jim Irsay Collection functioned as something closer to a mobile museum than a private holding. Irsay understood his guitars as chapters in a larger story: the history of how popular music shaped Western culture across the second half of the twentieth century. And he made a point of keeping them in public view, in players’ hands, and in motion. On March 12, 2026— the opening night of the auction— Christie’ s converted that story into $ 84,091,350.
Selected final prices from the evening sale are shown on the opposite page.
A word about the prices: Christie’ s buyer’ s premium for the Jim Irsay Guitar Auction is structured as a tiered schedule, meaning different portions of the hammer price are charged at different rates rather than applying a single percentage to the entire sale. According to Christie’ s financial terms, the premium is 27 % on the first $ 1.5 million of the hammer price, plus 22 % on the portion from $ 1.5 million to $ 8 million, and 15 % on any amount above $ 8
million. The wording“ plus” indicates that each band is calculated separately and then added together, similar to tax brackets. As a result, the final buyer’ s premium becomes a blended effective rate that declines as prices rise. For example, a guitar that sold for a hammer price of $ 12.1 million would incur premiums across all three tiers, producing a total premium of $ 2.45 million and a final purchase price of $ 14.55 million— an effective premium of about 20.25 %, even though the highest tier is only 15 %.
Two guitars crossed the eight-figure threshold, something the vintage guitar market had never witnessed before. The previous auction record, $ 6 million for Kurt Cobain’ s MTV Unplugged Martin, was surpassed so decisively it seemed to belong to a different era. For a few hours, it felt as though the entire hierarchy of guitar history had been rewritten in a single room.
120 | SPRING 2026