As Rick Nielsen’s guitars, cars and memorabilia head to the Julien’s auction block in October, it’s a good time to recall some of the vintage and one-of-a-kind guitars the Cheap Trick guitarist has owned over the years. Several are among the offerings in the October 24 Rick Nielsen Collection auction.
One of the most conspicuous is the stage-played 2004 Hamer “Five Neck” Korina, which will be offered for sale publicly for the first time ever in the landmark auction.
The unusual electric is among three five-necked models Nielsen had built to his custom specs. The original orange-finished example was made in 1981. He explained its origins to Guitar Aficionado magazine.
“How did I come up with such a backbreaking idea for an instrument? Well, back at shows in the late ’70s and early ’80s, I used to stack up as many as five guitars for my guitar solo. I'd play one for a little bit, then throw it away and play the one hanging underneath it.”
This eventually led to the birth of the five-necked guitar. Nielsen originally envisioned it as a six-necked model “that spun like a roulette wheel, so that I could play one neck and then rotate to the next,” he explained. “But then I decided to go with something more conservative — five necks in a row!”
He admitted that the monster of a guitar was a chore to build, due not only to its size and wiring but because of his specifications for each of the guitars. “I wanted a 12-string and a fretless, and one that sounded like a Stratocaster and one that sounded like a Junior,” he said. “But Hamer, never to be daunted, managed to put all the ideas together and made it work.”
It was left to Hamer’s Frank Untermeyer to bring Nielsen’s creation to life.
“Rick's out of his mind, but in a wonderful way,” Untermeyer told Guitar Aficionado. “By 1981, we had already done some pretty wacky stuff for him and Cheap Trick, like the checkerboard Standard, an electric mandocello, and a 12-string bass, so we were used to the fact that they set all standards for going to the limit.
“For this guitar, we cut apart five double-cutaway Hamer Special bodies and laminated them together, and then sanded in between the necks to get that sort of swoopy look. As I recall, routing the wires through this thing was also a huge pain in the ass.”
Hamer subsequently built two more five-neck guitars for Nielsen, including the 2004 Korina model now headed to auction.
The auction guitar has had a substantial stage career of its own. Nielsen used it at the 2004 Another State of Mind benefit show at Chicago’s Metro and continued playing it through at least 2013, when Cheap Trick performed its Budokan 35th Anniversary concert at the CBGB’s John Varvatos venue in New York. The guitar also appears in an episode of Gibson Guitars’ The Collection series featuring Nielsen.
Routing the wires through this thing was also a huge pain in the ass.”
— Frank Untermeyer
As the guitarist and songwriter behind Cheap Trick, Nielsen helped create some of the band’s most enduring songs, including “Surrender” and “Dream Police,” while his distinctive guitar work and larger-than-life stage presence helped propel the group from Rockford, Illinois, to international stardom.
Nielsen grew up around his parents’ music store and started out as a drummer before the Beatles and Rolling Stones helped turn his attention toward the guitar. He bought his first Les Paul — a 1955 Goldtop — for $65 and still owns it. Over the decades, his collection expanded to include rare and unusual instruments ranging from two 1958 Gibson Explorers to a 1963 Guild Merle Travis, one of only three ever made.
“I couldn’t sing or dance, but I was big into songwriting, and I tried to put everything I had into that,” Nielsen said. “I never wanted to be like anybody else — I just wanted to be me. I knew I was never going to be a virtuoso, so I ended up being a ‘medium-oso.’”
Now, after more than five decades of collecting, Nielsen is parting with a portion of that archive.
“I started out with one guitar, and over the years the collection just kept growing. It seemed like a good time to sell some of it — you can’t take it with you. When it’s all over, hopefully I’ll still have one guitar.”
More Rick Nielsen guitars headed to auction
The five-neck Hamer is far from the only notable guitar in The Rick Nielsen Collection.
Among the other highlights is a stage-played 1975 Hamer Standard, which Nielsen used on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert on November 10, 1977, and during Cheap Trick’s April 28, 1978 performance at Japan’s Budokan. It carries an estimate of $200,000 to $300,000.
Also offered is a sunburst 1963 Fender Stratocaster with a mint-green pickguard, chrome tremolo bridge and output jack plate, and white pickup covers and knobs. Its estimate is $40,000 to $60,000.
A 1984 Gibson Les Paul XPL is another unusual entry. The model combines the Les Paul body shape with the Explorer headstock, part of Gibson’s mid-1980s experiments with pairing the Explorer headstock with other body designs. Nielsen’s sunburst example comes with its original rectangular Gibson hardshell case and carries an estimate of $15,000 to $20,000.
The October 24 Rick Nielsen Collection auction will also include cars, stage-worn clothing, awards and other personal memorabilia. The sale will benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and will be held live at the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum at the Historic Nashville Municipal Auditorium.
Visit Julien’s Auctions to view the collection.
