Beatles legend Paul McCartney's stolen guitar found, returned after more than 50 years: 'Incredibly grateful'

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Paul McCartney talks about his Beatles band members at the Tribeca Film Festival. (Pop Nation/TMX)

Paul McCartney's original bass guitar, which the legendary musician used in The Beatles' early years, has been found and returned after it was stolen more than five decades ago.

The 81-year-old singer-songwriter was reunited with the left-handed Höfner 500/1 Violin Bass after its manufacturer and a husband-and-wife team of journalists embarked on a search for the missing instrument in 2018 that later became a crowdsourcing campaign called The Lost Bass Project. 

A statement shared Wednesday on McCartney's website confirmed that the guitar had been discovered and returned to its original owner.

"Following the launch of last year's Lost Bass project, Paul’s 1961 Höfner 500/1 bass guitar, which was stolen in 1972, has been returned. The guitar has been authenticated by Höfner and Paul is incredibly grateful to all those involved," the statement read.

Paul McCartney was reunited with his stolen bass guitar after more than 50 years. (Getty Images)

Originally purchased by McCartney in 1961 for $37, the guitar is now estimated to be worth $12.6 million, according to The Associated Press. 

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The guitar was McCartney's primary instrument when The Beatles were first getting their start with a series of residencies in Hamburg, Germany. McCartney played the instrument on The Beatles' first two albums, and it was featured on hits such as "Love Me Do," "Twist and Shout" and "She Loves You."

"Because I was left-handed, it looked less daft because it was symmetrical," McCartney once said, per the AP. "I got into that. And once I bought it, I fell in love with it."

The guitar was originally believed to have been stolen during the iconic band's recording sessions for their final album, "Let It Be," in 1969. 

The bass guitar was stolen in 1972. (Mark and Colleen Hayward/Redferns)

McCartney had asked Höfner to help find the missing instrument that helped launch Beatlemania across the universe, Scott Jones, a journalist who teamed up with Höfner executive Nick Wass to track it down, said Friday.

"Paul said to me, ‘Hey, because you’re from Höfner, couldn’t you help find my bass?’" Wass said, per the AP. "And that’s what sparked this great hunt. Sitting there, seeing what the lost bass means to Paul, I was determined to solve the mystery."

The Lost Bass Project was originally launched in 2018, but the investigation eventually stalled. However, in 2022, Jones and his wife Naomi teamed with Wass to help the search gain more media attention and enlist the public's assistance.

After The Lost Bass Project was relaunched last fall, the group received 600 emails within 48 hours that contained the "little gems that led us to where we are today," Jones told the AP.

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Sound engineer Ian Horne, who had worked with McCartney’s band Wings, contacted The Lost Bass Project and revealed that the bass had been stolen from the back of his van in London's Notting Hill neighborhood in 1972.

"I knew it was Paul's original Höfner bass that had been stolen, and I knew what it meant to him," Horne wrote in an email, according to The Lost Bass Project via CBS. 

McCartney played the Höfner bass on The Beatles' early recordings. (REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo)

"Trevor [Jones, McCartney's other sound engineer at the time] and I did all we could to find it, but it was gone. Eventually, we had to go to Paul's house in Cavendish Avenue and tell him that the gear had been stolen from the back of the truck. We went into the room and told Paul. He told us not to worry, and we kept our jobs. He's a good man, Paul. I worked for him for six years after the bass went missing. But I've carried the guilt all my life."

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The Lost Bass Project published the update in the search on their website and received an email from an individual who revealed that their father had stolen the bass. The man didn’t set out to steal McCartney’s instrument and panicked when he realized what he had, Jones said.

The thief, who was not named, later sold it to Ron Guest, landlord of the Admiral Blake pub, in exchange for a few pounds and some beers. Guest's family learned of the search and his daughter-in-law Cathy Guest contacted McCartney’s studio.

Cathy said that the instrument that had been stored in her attic for years looked like McCarthy's missing bass.

McCartney performs during the 2022 Glastonbury Festival in Glastonbury, England. (Harry Durrant/Getty Images)

The guitar had been passed from Ron Guest to his oldest son, who died in a car accident, and then to a younger son, Haydn Guest, who was married to Cathy and died in 2020.

The bass was returned to McCartney in December, and it was authenticated about two months later.

The estimated value of the instrument is based on the fact that a Gibson acoustic guitar Kurt Cobain played on "MTV Unplugged" sold for $6 million, Jones said. But it held almost no value during the past half century.

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"The thief couldn’t sell it," Jones said. "Clearly, the Guest family never tried to sell it. It’s a red alert because the minute you come forward someone’s going to go, ‘That’s Paul McCartney’s guitar.’"

"It is perhaps the most iconic lost musical instrument of all time. Now it is back with the man who bought it all those years ago. Finally the bass is back where it belongs," The Lost Bass Project wrote.

"We thought we would never see it again. But we have!," they added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.