Paul McCartney's lost bass guitar is returned after five decades

McCartney had originally teamed up with Höfner executive Nick Wass in order to find the lost instrument which he bought for around £30 in 1961 when The Beatles were doing a series of residencies in Hamburg, Germany. The instrument was played on the Beatles first two albums – Please Please Me, and With the Beatles, also featuring on classics such as “Twist and Shout,” and “She Loves You.”

“Paul said to me, ‘Hey, because you’re from Höfner, couldn’t you help find my bass?’” Wass explained of how the hunt began. “And that’s what sparked this great hunt. Sitting there, seeing what the lost bass means to Paul, I was determined to solve the mystery.” After hitting a dead end following a lead about a roadie for The Who, he relaunched The Lost Bass Project alongside journalist Scott Jones who had seen McCartney play at Glastonbury Festival in 2022.

Apparently, following a worldwide hunt, Paul McCartney’s first Höfner bass guitar, stolen from a van near where Wings were recording cuts for Red Rose Speedway on October 12, 1972, has been returned to Paul. If true, this is incredible news! https://t.co/vbyoOYF5CF

— THE McCARTNEY LEGACY (@McCARTNEYLEGACY) February 15, 2024

They received an email from sound engineer Ian Horne, who had worked with McCartney’s band Wings, who revealed that the bass had been stolen from the back of his van, in 1972. The researchers published the update and were contacted by a person who said their father had stolen the bass. They discovered that he sold it to Ron Guest, landlord of the Admiral Blake pub, for a few pounds and some beers.

Billboard reports that his daughter-in-law contacted McCartney’s studio to share that an old bass that had been in her attic for years looked like the one they were looking for. It had been passed from Ron Guest to his younger son, Haydn Guest, who was married to Cathy and died in 2020. The instrument was returned to McCartney in December.