CHICAGO — One of Grateful Dead legend Jerry Garcia’s favorite instruments was his trusty, custom-built, wood-grained guitar nicknamed “Tiger.”
Now “Tiger” could be coming back to Chicago after local guitar collector Bobby Tseitlin bought it at auction for $11.56 million, which was briefly a record for a guitar sale. (A black Fender Stratocaster used by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour sold at the same Christie’s auction last week for $14.5 million.)
Tseitlin, 44, is co-founder of Family Guitars, a Chicago company that collects historic instruments and is “home to some of the most legendary instruments ever played,” per its website. For the past 20 years, Tseitlin’s passion project has been collecting guitars, he told Rolling Stone.
Tseitlin isn’t about to store his famous guitars where no one can see them, though. He lends them out to musicians to play and keep them alive…