Torched Hendrix guitar sells for $495,000

LONDON, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- A Boston, Mass., collector says he paid $495,000 at a London auction for the guitar believed to be the first Jimi Hendrix set on fire during a concert.

"It was something I wanted to have," Daniel Boucher, the new owner of Hendrix's charred Fender Stratocaster, told the BBC after the The Fame Bureau's It's More Than Rock and Roll memorabilia auction. "I decided I would go the distance to get it. ... It's one of a kind from one of a kind."

Also sold at the auction for about $424,000 was the Beatles' first management contract, which was signed in 1962 by all four members of the group -- John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison -- and their manager Brian Epstein, the BBC said.