Van Halen’s ‘Shreveport’ Guitar Sells for More than $231K

The "King of the 6-String" lives on!  Earlier this year, we lost an honest-to-goodness guitar god.  Eddie Van Halen will forever be remembered as a pioneer of the rock guitar, and now someone has an amazing reminder of that trailblazing musical mastery.

As we reported shortly after the rock icon passed away in October this year - 3 very special guitars assembled, customized, and decorated by Eddie himself were going to auction as part of Julien’s music-oriented auction.  One of these guitars was played at Shreveport's Centenary Oyster House by Eddie during a very small (by Van Halen standards) show.  After the performance, Eddie signed and gifted the presumably still smoking and glowing guitar to the owner of the restaurant Bryan Cush.  EVH even inscribed the musical equivalent of Excalibur with these words:   “Yo – / Bryan / Let’s get / shucked / up / Eddie Van Halen / 5150.”

According to the Chicago Tribune, that auction happened yesterday.  The guitars were expected to bring in between $40,000 and $60,000 each, but they sold for much more.  In total, the guitars went for $422,000 - with the Shreveport axe raking in a whopping $231,250.  This amazing piece of red, black, and white striped performance art also came with a white Van Halen pick and 2 backstage passes for a Shreveport show - one labeled “Bertinelli Guest," which is obviously a reference to Eddie's wife of 26 years and Shreveport native, actress Valerie Bertinelli.