Auction of items from blues guitarist’s estate fetches $1.3m, with prize item a prototype Gibson guitar that was stolen and later returned
One of BB King’s most beloved guitars has sold at a US auction for $280,000 (£225,000).
The black Gibson ES-345 prototype was presented to King in 2005 by manufacturers Gibson on his 80th birthday, and was the first in a limited edition of 80. He used it as his primary guitar until it was stolen in 2009 and traded in at a
Las Vegas pawn shop. A guitar collector bought it, and after investigating its provenance, returned it to King later that year.