Guitar World writer recalls playing David Gilmour's Black Strat as a teenager

A Guitar World writer recounts, in a piece published on 17 October 2026, how in the mid-1980s he unknowingly played David Gilmour's Black Strat, the black Stratocaster Gilmour used to record “The Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall”.

On his 15th birthday the writer had bought a maple-neck sunburst Stratocaster on Manhattan's 48th Street, then gouged it with a cheap strap buckle while leaping around to Van Halen. Sent from store to store, he ended up with a luthier in Tribeca who filled the gash. There, a man collecting his own instrument tried the teenager's guitar and offered to jam for about 20 minutes, handing over a heavily scratched black Strat with faded paint.

Only after the man left did the luthier explain that he was Pink Floyd's road manager and that the guitar was Gilmour's Black Strat. The writer recalls it played beautifully, the first properly set-up guitar he had ever touched.

According to Guitar World, the Black Strat sold at auction in March 2026 for $14.5 million, the most ever paid for a guitar.

David Gilmour, born in Cambridge in 1946, is the English guitarist known as a member of Pink Floyd. His newest studio album is “Luck and Strange”, released in September 2024, according to MusicBrainz.