A guitar set on fire by Jimi Hendrix during a performance was sold for £280,000 after it was found in a garage where it had been lain for 40 years. The blazing guitar was a stunt, designed to generate publicity for Hendrix (he was then a relative unknown on the swinging sixties scene).

Hendrix set fire to the sunburst Fender Stratocaster after pouring lighter fluid on it during a gig at Finsbury Park in London in March 1967. He was playing the Astoria as support for the Walker Brothers. Hendrix was only allowed into the UK on a temporary visa at the time, he wanted to make an impression.  His press officer, Tony Garland, got him some lighter fluid which Hendrix used to torch his guitar at the end of the gig (suffering minor burns to his hands in the process). The guitar has since been in the hands of Tony Garland and remains in one piece.

Two months later Hendrix repeated the stunt at the Monterey Pop Festival. This time the stunt was filmed, and went down in history as new era in guitar stagecraft. It was a move that Hendrix came to regret in his later career as audiences demmanded such theatricals in every performance.

Link: BBC reporter plays Hendrix's charred guitar.