the Django-played 'LEVIN DELUXE' is up for sale..

AndyW

the Django-played 'LEVIN DELUXE' is up for sale

https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/juliens-auctions/catalogue-id-srjul10016/lot-ce64cb59-d0c0-46df-acf6-a76e004f2a65

http://www.julienslive.com/view-auctions/catalog/id/216/lot/89492/?url=/view-auctions/catalog/id/216/?page=1

ChrisMartin

That has been on and off ebay for years now, asking I think, about $80k. There has also been a suggestion that it was put in Django's hands for possibly less than a minute as a prop for a photographer and apart from maybe those few seconds Django may never have really played it? Anyone know more of that story? As an aside, I recently sold a 1951 Levin Deluxe that I had been meaning to restore for a long time and never got around to it. Apart from a hole in the top where someone had fitted a pickup it was clean straight and solid, but could have used a refinish. A collector I know made me a decent offer and he said it would be a $5k guitar when done, possibly a little more. So that Django touch adds $75k plus?

spatzo

According to Gottlieb who pictured him at the Aquarium, Django had the guitar in hand only five minutes just to help him shoot a musical picture of the famous injured hand.
Of course the price at first sight seems highly exagerated but in any case I suggest to proceed with a complete DNA sampling of the guitar before dropping the expected 100.000 bucks

Buco

There's some interesting stuff on that auction, some cool and some nuts like Elvis' pill bottle.

Yeah well, there's no sense or reason to vintage instrument market. This has been asked before: do original Selmers at 40,000 really sound 10 times better than a well made copy at $4,000? Or as if there's any sense in vintage Martin market where you can buy 40s guitar for a relatively normal price but once you start looking at 30s it jumps tenfold.

As far as this Levin I think it's all about the mentality of somehow being connected to the person the buyer wants to be connected to. This photo of Django has circled the globe many times over and it may be THE photo that Django is associated with. Whether Django actually used the guitar and played it or as it's​ the case here, simply posed with it I don't think makes much difference in the mind of a wealthy collector and fan of Django. There's a connection with a person, only it's through the medium of photography instead of medium of music making, with this guitar as the middleman of sorts.