How Paul McCartney's lost bass guitar was found five decades later

No one seemed to know what happened to one of the most important bass guitars in music history, although there had been some dramatic rumors in the decades since it went missing.

Was the Höfner violin bass, which had guided Paul McCartney and the Beatles to worldwide fame, hidden away in a private collection? Was it secretly sent to a wealthy fan in Japan?

It turned out that the bass spent time in a more modest location: the attic of a family home in East Sussex, England. The family reported the guitar in late September, after a pair of journalists and a guitar expert started a new campaign to search for it in 2023, more than 50 years after it was last seen.

The guitar, which has been authenticated by the manufacturer, has been returned to Mr. McCartney, according to a statement rack posted on its website on Thursday. “Paul is incredibly grateful to everyone involved,” it reads.

It was the denouement of an enduring mystery that gripped Beatles fans, including a group who pooled their skills to help find it.

'It started Beatlemania'

The Höfner 500/1 guitar is a precious part of Beatles lore. It can be heard on recordings of hit songs including 'Love Me Do', 'She Loves You' and 'Twist and Shout'.

After becoming the band's bassist, Mr. McCartney desperately needed a bass guitar and purchased the instrument in 1961 at a music store in Hamburg, Germany.

“I bought my fiddle bass at the Steinway store downtown,” he recalled in one Interview from 1993 with Guitar Magazine. It cost the equivalent of £30 – cheap enough for him to afford. “And once I bought it, I fell in love with it,” he said. “For a light, small bass, it has a very rich sound.”

As the Fab Four found a whirlwind of fame, Mr. McCartney played the Höfner at hundreds of gigs, including early concerts at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, England, where the Beatles met their future manager Brian Epstein, and for the recording of the first two the band's albums.

One of the last sightings of the bass was in London in 1969, in footage of the band writing their album “Let It Be.” Some time after that it disappeared.

Efforts to locate the bass had stalled until last September, when two journalists and a Höfner expert revived the search and asked the public for tips.

“It's an iconic instrument,” said Nick Wass, a semi-retired consultant for Höfner who worked with Mr. McCartney. “It started Beatlemania.”

Among the hundreds of responses they received were a few promising cluessaid Scott Jones, a journalist who worked on the project with his wife Naomi Jones.

A sound engineer who had worked with Mr. McCartney recalled that the guitar was left in the back of a van in 1972 and thieves subsequently broke in. Another tip, Mr Jones said, suggested the guitar had been stolen nearby and then sold for a bit of money and “some free beer” to Ronald Guest, the landlord of a local pub.

Then, in late September, the landlord's family, living in the town of Hastings, in southeastern England, contacted Mr. McCartney's studio: could the guitar in their attic be the missing bass?

“We thought this bass would have had a more glitzy journey,” Mr Jones said, adding that the research showed the guitar had remained in the same family. “In all those years, hardly any distance has been covered.”

Mr. Jones said a member of the Guest family presented the guitar to Mr. McCartney's studio in Sussex, England.

Social media posts It appeared Ruaidhri Guest, 21, was holding the guitar. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but said in a post Friday that the family would release details “in due course.”

Shortly after the guitar went on sale in late September, Mr. Wass drove from Germany to England to help verify that it was indeed a guitar. That Hofner.

“That's where I had it in my hands,” Mr. Wass said, adding that he had been looking for the guitar since Mr. McCartney inquired about it several years ago. Finding it, he said, felt “exciting.”

“It didn't take me more than ten seconds to know it was the right one,” he said. Mr. Wass pointed out the distinctive parts and color of the left-handed guitar.

The guitar had suffered some damage, he said, including a cracked neck, and would need to be repaired.

Its discovery surprised even the searchers, who said they were hopeful but realistic about their prospects as they pieced together the clues from archival clippings and tips. “We never thought we'd find it,” Mr. Jones said. “If we had to be honest, the chances were probably very slim.”

Other famous lost instruments have also been unearthed: a Gibson acoustic guitar owned by John Lennon which had been lost for decades, surfaced and was sold to an anonymous buyer in 2015 for $2.4 million.

Despite all odds, the team said they were driven by the determination to preserve a piece of Beatles mythology.

“All Beatles fans around the world can see this bass again,” Mr. Wass said. “I hope that when Paul McCartney gets it back he will play it for all of us.”