Hi Folks,

Steve Vai is selling his prototype Jem DNA guitar for charity.



This is Steve's only DNA guitar. It is the same one photographed in the Ibanez catalog, and the one that has spent some time in the Hollywood Guitar Center RockWalk Museum. It is one of only 300 world wide.

We're selling this guitar in an effort to raise funds for Cliff Cultreri. Cliff Cultreri is the A&R executive who ‘discovered’ both Satriani and Vai as well as many other popular recording artists, while working at Relativity Records. Cultreri is currently suffering from a host of Auto-Immune and Connective-Tissue disorders that are attacking his immune system, a one in 100 million occurrence that causes severe pain and physical problems. Vai hope to raise funds to help Cultreri and his family’s financial needs.

Glen has generously allowed me to post this here and promote an upcoming auction for the guitar, which will begin early next month. We will entertain offers for the guitar before that though, but please be aware that we are setting a high reserve.

Steve actually suggested that we post information about the guitar here on Jemsite first. Here's what he says about the guitar:

Steve most recently used this guitar extensively during rehearsals for the Zappa Plays Zappa tour, but decided not to take it on the road where it may get damaged before the auction.

It is in really excellent condition - the only blemish on the guitar is a small dent along the edge of the bottom of the guitar near the strap button. It is smaller than a match head.

You can email us at: [email protected] for more info. I'll also be updating this post with a link to the auction once that is underway.

The back/front photo above was taken by me in my studio and shows the guitar in its current state.

More official photos here: http://www.jemsite.com/news/namm2k/index.htm

Mikey
vai.com

Damn! I would have buy one if I've got the $$$$ but how much are you selling it for mikey

Whats the price like ?

Make an offer... ;p

Make an offer

I would be banned from this forum because if I do that I would treat it as an auction

Damn...time to sell the house, the car, the wife and children ! ;-)

Well, it's going to be WAAAAAAY out of my price range,but good luck with the auction and best wishes to Cliff and his family.

Rough price guide?

Well, you can figure a typical DNA bringing 4-5k, this one is going to pull an astronomical price. I'm not sure if the sale price for this piece will be tax deductible, as were/are the proceeds from the sale of Vai's gear that benefitted the MANF. That may affect the final sale price. In any event, this axe will fetch some unreal cash no doubt. My guess is, if you have to ask the price....you're not gonna be a player.

$20,000?

I don't want to bring it down and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the DNA in the Hollywood GC was a prototype that didn't have any DNA in it? Just curious.

Well, if it doesn't have any IN IT, it probably has a little ON IT.

And guys, it's an auction, who knows what it will bring? If he wanted everyone to know the reserve, he probably would've just said XXXX is the minimum bid, instead of that the reserve will be high. Anyway, Good Luck Mikey and best wishes to Cliff.

Rich has a DNA for sale for $6500 at the moment, I imagine that this guitar will raise more than that !