TULSA, Okla. — At least two of eight custom-made Gibson guitars crafted with wood salvaged from the childhood home of folk legend Woody Guthrie will be auctioned off to the public this week.
All proceeds will go toward the Woody Guthrie Home Reconstruction Project, a $600,000 rebuild of the 1860s-era property in Okemah. Project organizers hope the special-edition guitars – donated by Gibson – fetch six figures a piece when bidding begins Thursday on eBay.
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The handmade Woody Guthrie London House Model Southern Jumbo guitars feature fingerboards and bridges fashioned from the salvaged white oak floor joists of Guthrie’s boyhood home, which was so dilapidated that authorities ordered it be torn down in the 1970s. Nashville-based Gibson Brands sifted through bundles of wood to select planks free of termites and nails.
“Woody Guthrie is an American icon; he is Americana,” said Peter Leinheiser, Gibson’s head of entertainment relations.
Best known for “This Land Is Your Land,” Guthrie was born in 1912, came of age during the Depression and later embraced left-wing politics, union organizing and, for a time, some tenets of communism. He died in 1967.
– From news service reports
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