Eddie Van Halen ‘Hot For Teacher’ guitar sells for $4 million
The guitar that Eddie Van Halen played in Van Halen‘s ‘Hot For Teacher’ music video has sold at auction for nearly $4million.
The guitar was part of a Sotheby’s sale that included other items from the music video, notably the straightjacket that Van Halen ends up in at the video’s conclusion. The guitar was originally expected to sell for anywhere between $2m and $3m but wound up going for $3.9m at the end of the bidding.
Van Halen had a number of guitars styled in his signature ‘Frankenstrat’ paint job. The ‘Hot For Teacher’ guitar was made by Kramer Guitars luthier Paul ‘Unk’ Unkert to Van Halen’s specifications in 1982. It was the first in a series of guitars modelled after Van Halen’s original ‘Frankenstrat’, which he built himself in the mid-1970s.
“The ‘Hot For Teacher’ Van Halen [guitar] was built by me at the Kramer Green Grove Road Plant in Neptune, NJ around 1982-1985/ #CO176,” Unkert writes in the letter of authentication. “Look for ‘Unk’ stamps on Neck and Body. It was my last project for Ed and Kramer.”
Van Halen originally gifted the guitar to a drum tech for the band in 1990. The employee’s nephew then sold it to Neal’s Music in Huntington Beach, California. The shop wound up being the owners who put the guitar up for auction.
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