“Monterey”

Most guitars are famous for what was played on them. The Monterey Strat is famous for what was done to it. On June 18, 1967, Jimi Hendrix closed his Monterey Pop Festival set by kneeling on stage, applying lighter fluid to his Stratocaster, kissing it, lighting a match, and then smashing the burning guitar against the stage. The whole sequence was photographed by a 17-year-old named Ed Caraeff, whose images became some of the most reproduced photographs in rock history. What survives is a single fragment: a piece of the lower treble bout including the output jack, some wiring, and part of the control cavity — now on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art from Seattle's Museum of Pop Culture.

Why This Guitar Matters

• The destruction at Monterey is the single most documented guitar-burning in rock history — photographed by Ed Caraeff and filmed as part of D.A. Pennebaker's concert film
• The fragment is the only physical remnant of a guitar that otherwise no longer exists; the Met's object record confirms its dimensions, materials, and what portion of the body survived
• The guitar's painting — spray paint and nail polish applied by Hendrix the day before — is preserved on the fragment, making the artifact both musical object and artwork
• Montery marked Hendrix's American mainstream breakthrough: he had been bigger in the UK than in the US, and this performance — and this moment — ended that
• The song attribution has been disputed for decades, which matters: context changes meaning

The Instrument

Specs

The guitar was destroyed on June 18, 1967. The specs below refer to the surviving fragment and to what can be inferred from the official narrative about the intact guitar. Almost nothing about the pre-destruction guitar is documented with spec-level precision.

What This Guitar Actually Sounds Like

The guitar doesn't have a recorded sound — no significant studio work is attributed to this specific instrument, and the Monterey performance itself is the document. What we know about Hendrix's Monterey rig is approximate: he was using a Marshall stack, likely a Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face, and a Vox wah. The Strat itself was a standard production guitar of the era.

The honest answer for this guitar is that the sound isn't the point. The artifact isn't a tone reference — it's a documentation of a performance event. The fragment tells you what happened to the guitar, not how it responded to Hendrix's picking attack.

Provenance: Where It's Been

How the artist got it

The guitar's pre-Monterey provenance is not documented in accessible sources. It was in Hendrix's possession by June 1967. The official estate narrative describes him painting it — applying flowers and ornate imagery — at some point before the performance, with Eric Burdon of the Animals witnessing or being aware of the decoration process. Beyond that, the guitar's purchase history and prior use are unspecified.

Ownership timeline

Timeline: How It Changed

The decoration is not just context — it's physically on the fragment. The Met's technical description includes the spray paint and nail polish designs as part of the artifact's material description. This is the guitar Hendrix made it into, preserved in the only piece that survived the fire and impact.

Visual Record

Essential Listening

The Monterey guitar has no studio recording legacy — it existed for one performance and was destroyed in it. These are the documented recordings from that event:

1. "Wild Thing" (Monterey Pop, June 18, 1967) — The final song of the set, during which the burning and smashing occurred. The performance begins as a fairly standard take and ends with Hendrix on his knees coaxing feedback from the burning guitar before smashing it.
2. "The Star-Spangled Banner / Purple Haze" (Monterey Pop, June 18, 1967) — Earlier in the same set, before the destruction. Hearing what the guitar sounded like while it was intact makes the ending hit differently.
3. "Hey Joe" (Monterey Pop, June 18, 1967) — The set opener. By this point the guitar had been painted but not yet burned. The full Monterey set, released on Jimi Plays Monterey, is the only recording document for this instrument.
4. "Foxy Lady" (Monterey Pop, June 18, 1967) — Hendrix opens with feedback and builds into the riff; the distortion and amp saturation are consistent with the Marshall/Fuzz Face rig the rest of the set.
5. "Like a Rolling Stone" (Monterey Pop, June 18, 1967) — An unusual choice for Hendrix, covering Dylan in his American breakthrough set; the guitar is most audible in the quieter verse sections.

Market Context

The comparable basket

"1967 Fender Stratocaster, player grade, any original finish, standard three-pickup configuration"

The Monterey guitar as a collector object doesn't have a market — the fragment is in a museum. As a tone and aesthetic reference, the relevant basket is late-'60s Strats: 1966–1968, any standard finish, original electronics, player condition.

Relevant AxeDB model pages: Fender Stratocaster

What actually drives price in this segment

• Finish originality — refins are common in this era; original nitro lacquer in any color adds 30–60% over a refinished body, sometimes more for rare colors
• Neck date / body date alignment — CBS-era quality control varied; a guitar with a neck and body from the same year is preferred
• Pickup originality — original gray-bottom single-coils from this era carry premium; replacements (even period-correct) reduce value
• Headstock condition — 1960s Strat headstocks crack and get repaired; cracks, repaired or not, affect value in a segment where buyers scrutinize everything

Famous-guitar premium vs instrument premium

The fragment wouldn't sell — it's been in museum custody for decades and has cultural heritage status. The performance guitars Hendrix actually used at Monterey (multiple Strats were at that show) would command tens of millions at auction based on comparable Hendrix guitar sales. A player-grade 1967 Strat is a different category entirely: expect $8,000–$15,000 depending on condition and originality.

Get Your Own

Off the shelf

Fender's Jimi Hendrix Stratocaster (around $900 new) is the entry-level answer. For Monterey specifically — where the guitar's appearance (painted, decorated) matters as much as the specs — the instrument itself is almost beside the point. Any Strat + paint markers + your own iconography gets you closer to the spirit of Monterey than a $4,000 spec-correct vintage piece.

The Fender Custom Shop makes various Hendrix-inspired pieces, typically in the $3,500–$6,000 range for production Custom Shop work, though the Monterey-painted aesthetic isn't something Fender has formally issued as a signature item. The original paint job was one-of-a-kind.

Vintage sweet spot

A 1966–1968 Stratocaster in any standard finish, player condition, with original or period-correct pickups. The 1967–1968 range is the Monterey window; you're not buying it for spec-level authenticity (the Monterey guitar's full specs are undocumented), you're buying it for the feel and the era. Budget $8,000–$15,000 for a solid player-grade example with some original parts.

Build your own

Parts list:

• Body: Alder, any period finish (Olympic White or fiesta red come closest to the likely base color) — nitro lacquer
• Neck: One-piece maple with slab rosewood board (1967 era) or maple board depending on production date
• Pickups: Fender Custom Shop '69 or equivalent period single-coils; or for the Monterey sound specifically, any responsive single-coil that cleans up well under a germanium fuzz
• Bridge: Vintage 6-saddle tremolo, chrome
• Hardware: Nickel Kluson-style tuners; white plastic knobs
• Setup targets: Medium-low action; .010–.046 nickel roundwound; trem blocked or floating to preference

Myths and Disputes

• Myth: Hendrix burned the guitar during "Fire." → Reality: The official Hendrix estate narrative places the burning as the climax of "Wild Thing," the final song of the set. Some photo captions and later commercial reproductions have attributed the image to "Fire." Follow the estate's narrative and D.A. Pennebaker's filmed account for song context.
• Myth: Monterey was the first time Hendrix burned a guitar on stage. → Reality: This was apparently a planned stage piece, and the idea reportedly originated backstage in London on March 31, 1967 — a suggestion attributed to journalist Keith Altham and adopted by Chas Chandler. By Monterey, the burning had been conceptualized and planned; what made Monterey iconic was the photographs. The London instance was earlier but underdocumented; Monterey became the canonical moment because Ed Caraeff was there with a camera.
• Myth: The fragment is the whole guitar. → Reality: The Met's record is explicit: "chunk of lower treble bout… including jack, wiring, and part of control cavity." It's a piece of the body — not the neck, not the headstock, not the full guitar. The rest was destroyed in the fire and subsequent smashing.

FAQ

What was the guitar, exactly? A right-handed Fender Stratocaster, described in the official estate narrative as a "red Strat." The precise factory finish color isn't confirmed — "red" could mean Fiesta Red, Candy Apple Red, or another finish. It was a standard production instrument, not an unusual spec.

Why did Hendrix paint it? The most contemporaneous account, preserved in the official Hendrix narrative, is that he painted it the day before the performance — with flowers and ornate imagery — with Eric Burdon (of the Animals) aware of or present for the process. The painting was part of the stage piece he had planned for Monterey.

What happened to the rest of the guitar? Destroyed. What wasn't consumed by fire was smashed against the stage. The surviving fragment — the piece of the lower treble bout with the output jack and wiring — is the only material remnant.

Where is the fragment now? On loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art from the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) in Seattle. It was displayed as part of the "Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock and Roll" exhibition beginning in 2019. MoPOP holds the underlying collection.

Was this Hendrix's best guitar? No — it was a stage prop for a planned destruction performance. Hendrix had many guitars he actually worked with: the Woodstock Strat (serial 240981), Black Beauty, and others. The Monterey guitar's significance is entirely about the event, not about its qualities as a musical instrument.

What's the closest guitar I can actually buy? Any standard-issue late-1960s Fender Stratocaster gets you to the same parts era. The Fender Jimi Hendrix Stratocaster (around $900) is the obvious production answer. See our Fender Stratocaster page for used market data.