A 1982 Kramer owned and stage-played by the late, great Eddie Van Halen is heading to auction, with the red-black-and-white custom-build expected to become the world’s next seven-figure electric guitar.
How much are we talking? Sotheby’s, who is hosting the auction in October this year, estimates that it will fetch between $2 million and $3 million. Though these estimates can be conservative, particularly in today’s market.
This was a transitional Kramer (Serial #B1297), a precursor to the 5150. And you can see where the direction of travel was going as far as the aesthetic goes.
There’s the six-in-line banana headstock, with weathered gold hardware. On the back there’s gold text in a Gothic typeface that reads “#1 Edward Van Halen Model”.
The maple fingerboard has seen a lot of action, with the documentation presenting it as one of EVH’s touring guitars between ’82 and ’83 during the band’s tour of the US and South America. And the colour scheme is cribbed from the O.G. Frankenstrat.
Eddie Van Halen gave this to his guitar tech, Rudy Leiren, back in the day, with the message, “Rude – Its Been a Great Ten Years – Lets Do Another Ten. Eddie Van Halen”, but the certificate of authenticity comes from another of the guitar’s high-profile owners, Mick Mars, who played it extensively with Mötley Crüe.
Indeed, with Van Halen moving onto the 5150, Mars would be responsible for some of that wear. He used this Kramer to track the Crüe’s 1989 studio album, Dr Feelgood.
Which is interesting, because if you think of the recording of Dr Feelgood, produced by an ascendent Bob Rock, then you could credibly claim that this guitar can be heard on Aerosmith’s Pump, which was being recorded in the same studio.
When Guitar World readers asked Mars for his memories of Dr Feelgood, he says he played so loud his guitar bled into the next door.
“Steven Tyler was doing vocals with producer Bruce Fairbairn next door,” said Mars. “And I remember them yelling at me, ‘You’ve gotta turn your stuff down, Mick! It’s leaking into our vocals.’ I didn’t turn down, though. I just told them, ‘Hey, that’s the way I play – loud’ [laughs] So yeah, I’m all over the record they were doing. Somewhere in the mix, you’ll hear me.”
Eddie Van Halen’s history with Kramer captures a febrile moment for electric guitar design. Just recently, Paul Reed Smith revealed how he ended up working on the 5150 guitar after receiving a phone call from Kramer co-founder Dennis Berardi.
Eddie Van Halen was coming into their shop in Neptune, New Jersey – could Smith come in and help?
What was going on was, Kramer at the time didn’t have a guitar maker, Eddie was coming. So they called me,” said Smith. “Dennis Berardi called me, and said, ‘Paul! Paul! I need your help. Eddie’s coming up. We need you to put a guitar together.’
“I came up and we assembled this Kramer guitar for him. I made the pickup for it. It was set up with pieces of aluminum in the back and he could set it like this [like a lap steel] and play it like a piano. But that guitar, eventually, those pieces of aluminum got removed and that was the 5150 guitar.”
Kramer’s relationship with Eddie Van Halen changed guitar history. And it all came from a chance meeting. Berardi had befriended Van Halen’s manager on a flight, and with the guitar looking for a stable vibrato system, Kramer’s Rockinger system had intrigued him. That kicked things off.
The Rockinger trem didn’t last. It was switched out for the Floyd Rose in 1983. But Eddie Van Halen was as good as his word. Kramer became the top-selling guitar brand in 1985.
For more details on the auction, head over to Sotheby's.
