Townshend guitar proves smash hit at auction

The smashed Rickenbacker.

You might struggle to strum the opening riff of My Generation on it.

But that did not stop one music fan shelling out more than 50,000 ($112,210) for a battered guitar - which was smashed on stage by Pete Townshend himself.

The Rickenbacker fell victim to the veteran guitarist's antics during The Who's 25th anniversary tour in 1989.

It has sold at auction for 52,500 alongside an intact instrument also played by Townshend.

The 70-year-old rocker was notorious throughout his career for destroying guitars on stage. Yesterday he said: "In the first years of work with The Who in 1964 and 1965 I smashed about seven Rickenbackers, but never another until 1989, and the one offered here is the only one to survive, even in pieces."

Those pieces were gathered by his guitar technician after the gig in 1989 and later mounted as an installation, which is how it was sold at Bonhams in London, alongside an intact Rickenbacker.

A body and necks of four Gibson guitars destroyed by Townshend were also on sale, but were later withdrawn.