Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett guitar sells for £20K at Cambridge auction

A guitar once owned by Pink Floyd's founder Syd Barrett has sold at auction for almost £20,000.

The 12-string Yamaha acoustic guitar fetched almost double its pre-sale estimate of £5,000 to £10,000 at an auction at Cheffins, in Cambridge.

Barrett left Pink Floyd in 1968 and lived in his mother's basement in Cambridge. He died of pancreatic cancer in 2006 at the age of 60.

The guitar, which Barrett got in 1971, was bought by a bidder from France.

Barrett, whose real name was Roger Keith Barrett, mentioned the guitar in a 1971 interview with Rolling Stone magazine.

He told the journalist Mick Rock: "It's my new 12-string guitar. I'm just getting used to it. I polished it yesterday."

Shortly after that interview, Barrett became a recluse and his mental deterioration was blamed on drugs.

He had been the principal songwriter and driving creative force in the early days of Pink Floyd, the band he was a founding member of, and in which he sang and played guitar.

But just when the band's career was taking off, Barrett's drug use and mental health issues resulted in increasingly erratic behaviour, leading to his departure from the band, and eventual return to Cambridge.

The guitar was sold, together with a copy of the Rolling Stone magazine from December 1971, by the singer's nephew, Mark Barrett, 57, after it had been stored for decades at the home of Mr Barrett's father.

It sold at auction for £19,920.

The proceeds are to split evenly between charities Mind and the Arthur Rank Hospice, the family said.

"We were thrilled with the result of the guitar and are pleased that it will be going to someone who will appreciate it," said Mark Barrett.

"It's been in our family loft for years so I hope that it will give someone else as much joy as it did my uncle."

A number of other items belonging to Barrett were also sold, including a garden table made by the singer which was bought for £2,365.50 by the same bidder who bought the guitar.

Martin Millard, a director at Cheffins, said: "We had a number of Pink Floyd superfans present at the sale and with successful bidders from across the globe, the legend of Syd clearly lives on.

"The guitar saw a huge amount of pre-sale interest on an international scale and goes to show that his cult-like status as one of the greatest icons in the world of music still holds true."

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