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Jerry Garcia's Alligator Guitar up for Auction in LA

Reuters

   LOS ANGELES - A battered Fender Stratocaster played by the late
   Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia could fetch up to $400,000 at an
   auction in Los Angeles next week.

   The guitar, nicknamed Alligator because of the distinctive green
   alligator sticker on the front, was played by Garcia on the Grateful
   Dead's 1972 European tour and other live performances between
   1971-1973, auctioneers Bonhams said Thursday.

   "It is very special because it was the first guitar that (he) ever
   named. He had a reputation for naming his guitars," Giles Moon,
   director of music memorabilia at Bonhams, told Reuters.

   First named guitar

   The guitar, made in 1955, is believed to have been given to Garcia by
   British musician Graham Nash.

   "Jerry played guitar on one of his albums and as a thank-you present
   Graham bought the guitar. Supposedly, he found it in a pawn shop in
   Texas and gifted it to Jerry in 1970 and then it was Jerry's favorite
   guitar for about three years," Moon said.

   Moon said the $250,000-$400,000 estimate was on the conservative side
   and that the guitar could sell for much more given Garcia's skills as a
   guitar player and the fervent Deadhead fan base.

   The musician's custom-made Wolf guitar, which he played for more than
   two decades, sold for $1.9 million at a charity auction in 2017.

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