Johnny Ramone’s Guitar Used On Every Ramone’s Album Goes Up For Auction

The Ramones are easily one of the most well known and influential bands of the punk era of the late 70′s and early 80′s. Hell the Ramones are probably one of the greatest rock bands ever. And now a friend of the band and member of their inner circle, Daniel Rey, is auctioning off a big collection of original early punk memorabilia and gear from one of the biggest bands in the history of punk. But the star of this show will definitely be Johnny Ramone’s guitar. This is his main guitar that he used for every record they ever made, and played at every Ramones performance until his retirement: from November 1977 through August 1996. That’s a total of 1,985 shows that this guitar has been on stage. Johnny even autographed the back of the guitar “Johnny Ramone, My Main Guitar, 1977-1996″.

Daniel Rey is a New York musician turned producer, and an avid collector of all things punk. He was a friend of the Ramones and many other punk bands during the hey day of the scene. And his personal memorabilia and gear collection has some truly cool things in it. Some of the items up for bid include some of Joey Ramone’s stage used microphones from their final concert, autographed posters, signed lyric books, guitars and amps owned and used by Johnny, and even some Misfits and Iggy Pop items too. But clearly the main draw will be Johnny’s guitar which is expected to fetch half a million dollars when the bidding ends sometime this Saturday night.

Here are the details of Johnny’s 1965 Mosrite Ventures II guitar from the press release about the auction:

“The 1965 Mosrite Ventures II electric guitar personally-owned and used by Johnny Ramone (John Cummings) for nearly two decades as the guitarist for punk rock legends the Ramones, with the back of the guitar signed in black felt tip, “Johnny Ramone, My Main Guitar, 1977-1996.”

It was played at every Ramones performance until his retirement: from November 1977 through August 1996 , for a total of approximately 1,985 shows.

The instrument was used to record all 15 Ramones albums and can be heard on any live Ramones bootleg from late 1977-1999. It was later displayed at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland for a number of years.

Cummings originally purchased the guitar in 1977 to replace his original blue Ventures II slab body, which was stolen from the Sire Records van with the rest of the band’s gear after a show at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. Ironically, this guitar had been offered to Cummings earlier in 1977, but he passed on it feeling it was too expensive at $500, which was a little less than ten times what he paid for his original Ventures II in 1974.”

The pre-bidding being done online is already open and prices are going up. And the live auction starts this Saturday at 3 pm EST from Boston. You can get all the online and bidding info at this link, for RRAuction.com.

Here’s Daniel Rey sharing the story of how he got Johnny’s guitar. And there’s a gallery of many of the Ramones’ items up for sale below too, as well as pics of Johnny playing the guitar on stage.