Artifacts and Oddities from the Jim Irsay Collection

Many team owners with more money than they know what to do with often spend their fortunes on race cars, sports memorabilia, real estate, and divorces, but Irsay had a passion for collecting guitars, artifacts from history, and objects of pop culture fascination. Irsay died on May 21, 2025, but left behind a collection of pretty incredible pieces of history. Here are some notable items:

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David Gilmour's 1969 Fender Statocaster

Known to fans as as "The Black Strat," David Gilmour played this guitar on every Pink Floyd record from 1970 to 1983, including The Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall. While many vintage instruments are celebrated for having all original parts, The Black Strat is famous for the modifications and customizations including updated pickups, pickguards, tailpieces and tuners, and has undergone six different neck changes. Other Floyd-related objects in the collection include the Martin Acoustic D-35 played on "Wish You Were Here" and a Schaffer Vega Diversity System 63EX Wireless Receiver played through during The Wall tour in 1980.

Jim Morrison's "Paris Journal"

One macabre oddity of the collection is the notebook Jim Morrison was keeping in Paris from March 11th until he died on July 3rd, 1971. The notebook contains 100-plus pages of Morrison's writings, sketches, poems, song ideas, and pasted-in images. The book is housed in a leather box with an inscription/description by Graham Nash (the two artists shared a manager). Another Doors-related item in the collection is an EV-676G Electro-Voice microphone used by Morrison for every public performance from February 1968 until his final performance in December 1970.

Kurt Cobain's 1969 Fender Mustang

Another legendary guitar, the collection features the 1969 Fender Mustang that Kurt Cobain used on In Utero, and it is believed also appears on Nevermind. The most notable appearance of this Mustang is its front-and-center starring role in the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video. At some point during the guitar's life, the tremolo was disabled in an effort to keep the thing in tune. There are very few "contemporary" music items in the collection, but Dusty Hill's fur-covered bass and The Edge's Gibson Explorer are a couple of notable items from the past several decades.

John Coltrane's 1966 Yamaha Nippon Gakki Alto Saxophone

When John Coltrane toured Japan in 1966, Yamaha instruments presented him with this alto saxophone. He played this alto during his two-week Japanese tour which resulted in the recordings Concert in Japan and the four-disc set Live in Japan, where he is pictured on the cover playing this exact alto. Another jazz-related object in the collection worth noting is Miles Davis' Martin Committee Trumpet

Ringo Starr's "Drop T" Bass Drum Head

The collection showcases a ton of artifacts from The Beatles, including Ringo's bass drum head as seen by 73 million people when the band made their debut performance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964. Other priceless items include newspaper clippings, handwritten lyrics, a Shea Stadium ticket stub, Brian Epstein's business card, and several guitars including George Harrison's 1964 Gibson SG which he used extensively from 1966 to 1968.

Prince's 1995 Andy Beech Custom Yellow Cloud

Prince did everything his own way, from his songwriting to his contract disputes to his wardrobe. This uniqueness was personified in this custom guitar from the mid-'90s, following a long series of Cloud guitars from the Minneapolis shop Knut Koupee. As far back as 1983, Prince had been working with Knut Koupee on these Cloud guitars as can be seen in the film Purple Rain, but this one was a custom commission built by Andy Beech around 1995. The only other Prince item listed in the collection is this set of stage-worn handcuffs the artist wore on Soul Train.

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The whole archive is a fun browse, with historical objects from Abraham Lincoln, JFK, World War II, and the Beat Generation, as well as a Golden Ticket from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Al Pacino's Annotated Scarface Script, Hunter S. Thompson's red convertible, and the actual "Wilson" volleyball from the movie Cast Away.

More cool artifacts and detail can be found in depth at The Jim Irsay Collection website.