Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen Auctioning 300 Items, Including Prized Guitars

Cheap Trick‘s Rick Nielsen is teaming with Julien’s Auctions for a sale of an enormous 300-plus-piece collection of memorabilia including 70-plus guitars, with a portion of proceeds set to benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. Among the items being sold are one of his iconic five-neck Hamer guitars played onstage; a 1955 Ford Thunderbird; handwritten lyrics for “Heaven Tonight”; and a custom checkboard design John Deere tractor with a snowplow. Get Cheap Trick Tickets Here The auction is set to take place on October 24th live at the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum at the Historic Nashville Municipal Auditorium. The sale includes a number of rarities as well, including one of only three 1963 Guild Merle Travis guitars ever produced. Nielsen said of the upcoming auction, “I couldn’t sing or dance, but I was big into songwriting, and I tried to put everything I had into that. 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.’ 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....