Kurt Cobain's smashed guitar, signed by Nirvana, sells for nearly $600,000

One of Kurt Cobain's Nevermind-era guitars just sold for $595,000.

The guitar was smashed onstage around the time of Nirvana's landmark 1991 album by the band's frontman and later re-assembled, though it remains unplayable.

Nirvana Kurt Cobain

The black Fender Stratocaster was auctioned off by Julien's Auctions during its Music Icons event at New York's Hard Rock Cafe. It was originally estimated to sell for $60,000.

The body of the guitar is signed by all three members of Nirvana — Cobain, Dave Grohl, and Krist Novoselic — and features an inscription to Mark Lanegan of the Screaming Trees by Cobain that reads, "Hell-o Mark! Love, Your Pal, Kurdt Kobain / Washed up rockstar."

According to the auction house, the neck plate is engraved with "Boddah Lives" (a reference to Cobain's childhood imaginary friend) and the guitar is housed in a black hard case with "Abort Christ" written on the top in white block letters.

Cobain's guitars are always big ticket items for auction houses, with his iconic MTV Unplugged 1959 Martin D-18E selling for a record-breaking $6 million in 2020, while the 1969 Fender Mustang  he used in the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video sold for $4.5 million last year.

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• Kurt Cobain's MTV Unplugged guitar breaks auction records with $6 million sale

• Billy Corgan says when Kurt Cobain died he 'cried because I had lost my greatest opponent'

• From the EW archives: Life at the top was far from Nirvana for Kurt Cobain