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Lot Essay
An early production model that I received from Fender when my Signature Jaguar was released in 2012, this was one of the first ‘main’ Jags that I used throughout my first solo tours. The artwork on the back is ink and was done in Australia by my friends Aly Stevenson and Ory Englander, who created the Johnny Marr fan site and fanzine Dynamic. The images are of Aldous Huxley, Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel and the Chrysler Building.
JOHNNY MARR, 2026
The culmination of an intensive four-year passion project to build the “perfect” Jaguar (see footnote to previous lot), which saw Marr and master guitar technician Bill Puplett make multiple modifications and refinements to the Jaguar’s original design that would be road-tested across literally hundreds of live shows, Marr’s final prototype for the Johnny Marr Signature Jaguar was submitted to Fender for their exact reproduction circa late 2010 and slated for commercial release in early 2012. It’s believed that Fender first provided Marr with a small number of pre-production prototypes in early October 2011 in order to prepare exclusive promotional features ahead of the release, one of which Marr would gift to his son Nile, whilst another would be presented to his namesake Nile Rodgers the following June.
The present guitar was among the first few production models sent to Marr when Fender finally released the Johnny Marr Signature Jaguar in January 2012. Making this signature Jaguar has been a four year journey, said Marr upon release. I've taken all the aspects of the guitar in every direction I could, to improve it without losing the classic features that I liked from the original design. It's been a labour of love and obsession, and a privilege. I've used it for everything I've done since I started making it. It's my perfect guitar.
In line with Marr’s original prototype, the Johnny Marr Signature Jaguar featured custom-wound Bare Knuckle Johnny Marr single-coil neck and bridge pickups, a custom-shaped maple neck based on Marr’s 1965 Jaguar neck, with a vintage-style truss rod and Marr’s signature on the headstock, a four-way pickup selector switch mounted to the lower horn (allowing the player to select either bridge, neck, bridge and neck in parallel, or bridge and neck in series), two upper horn slide switches for hi-pass filters (which Fender named ‘universal bright’ and ‘pickup switch position four bright’), a Jaguar bridge with Mustang saddles and nylon bridge post inserts for improved stability, and a vintage-style floating tremolo tailpiece. The absolute main criteria for me doing a guitar with Fender is that anyone can go into the shop and come out with one that’s exactly the same as the guitar I play. That had to be the case, Marr told Guitar & Bass magazine in 2012. Fender were absolutely true to their word, he acknowledged to guitar historian Tony Bacon. They even let me outsource the pickups and have them made by Bare Knuckle in the UK. They made it so that every one of my signature Jags is exactly the same as mine. And it’s been very, very successful, which makes me really proud.
From first release, the Signature Jaguar was available in Olympic White and a burnt orange finish that Marr named Metallic KO. I always loved white on white Fender guitars, wrote Marr for Fender’s promotional booklet. White guards on ‘Olympic White’ bodies. It’s also the colour of the main Jag I’ve used for the last few years. Although he wasn’t necessarily aware of it at the time, the preference for a “white on white” finish had been inspired by one of his childhood heroes. Marr told us: When I think back to my influences, the first person I ever wanted to be was Marc Bolan from T-Rex, and that showed up when I put out my first signature Jag in 2012. It was only afterwards I realised that that's why I was so attracted to putting out a white and off-white guitar, because I always remember Bolan playing a white Strat.
One of the first things Marr did before using the present guitar was to remove his signature decal from the headstock, observing to Bacon: There’s something just a bit too vain about that. It’s probable that this guitar saw significant use during the recording of Marr’s debut solo album The Messenger over the course of 2012, as indicated by the visible wear to the body when it was first seen on stage in February 2013. Marr specifically recalls recording the songs ‘The Right Thing Right’, ‘European Me’, ‘Lockdown’, and ‘New Town Velocity’ on one of his white Signature Jaguars, but as there were at least two of these white Jags in regular use at the time, it’s impossible to pin down exactly which one. Marr had first started writing the material for The Messenger while touring with The Cribs in 2010, inspired by his experiences on the road. There was an overriding aesthetic to these things I was coming up with, which made it seem like they should all be a part of a record, Marr told Stereogum in late 2012. I habitually think like a band animal, probably because I've been doing this now since I was literally 14, so I assumed that I'd put a group together and off we'd go, but within a few weeks of making demos by myself it became clear that I was already just making the record [solo]. Speaking to Q magazine in 2016, Marr reflected: I think I just got old enough to be a frontman. I didn’t know what I wanted to sing about before. When the time did come to put a band together, Marr enlisted co-producer James Doviak on second guitar and keyboards, and invited Iwan Gronow and Jack Mitchell, who he had produced when they were in the band Haven, to play bass and drums. When we went out, Marr continued, I wanted us to be the best live band in the world, which seems like an incredibly juvenile ambition, but why not? The same four-piece line-up forms Marr’s band to this day.
Two days after the release of his long-awaited solo debut, Marr was presented with NME’s Godlike Genius Award at the Troxy in London on 27 February 2013. After picking up the award, Marr strapped on this guitar to play a six-song set that featured guest appearances from The Vaccines’ Justin Young on a cover of The Crickets’ ‘I Fought The Law’, and the Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood on The Smiths’ classic ‘How Soon Is Now?’ Whilst Marr favoured one of his prototype Jags on the first few legs of The Messenger Tour from March to September 2013, he switched to this signature model as his main guitar for a further round of tour dates across the UK and US from 4 October to 26 November 2013, which included performances at London’s Roundhouse on 18 October and The Fillmore in San Francisco on 1 November 2013. My gigs were a rousing affair from the off, writes Marr in his 2016 autobiography. The album was a hit, and me and my band played all the new stuff as well as my favourites from the past. All the solo songs worked live, which meant that when it came to playing songs by The Smiths or Electronic I felt I’d represented my current direction well enough, and playing the old songs became a celebration and gave the crowd something they knew and loved. Following two nights of back-to-back shows in Los Angeles, Marr performed an intimate set for KCRW FM at producer Bob Clearmountain’s Apogee Studio on 4 November 2013. Recorded highlights, including Marr’s performance of ‘New Town Velocity’ on this guitar, were broadcast via their website on 18 November 2013. While in New York, Marr appeared on NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on 15 November 2013, wielding this Jag for a performance of the album track ‘Generate! Generate!’, as well as a web-only bonus performance of The Smiths’ ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want’.
The reverse of the body was customised with an Aldous Huxley transfer by fans Aly Stevenson and Ory Englander during Marr’s brief tour of Australia from 30 December 2013 to 7 January 2014. The transfer of the Chrysler Building was added during the UK leg of the Playland Tour in October 2014 and the image of Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel in Liverpool in early 2015. It’s probable that Marr wrote and recorded some of Playland on this guitar, as he writes: Travelling and working so much inspired me, and before I finished touring with The Messenger, I was making another album, called Playland. I would write songs on the road and then record them in between dates. In May 2014, Marr filmed an exclusive four-set performance at The Hospital Club in London for Fender Films, playing this white Jag for the songs ‘Sun and Moon’, ‘Lockdown’ and ‘I Want the Heartbeat’. After enlisting this guitar for one-off shows at Leeds’ Brudenell Social Club on 24 March and Deer Shed Festival at Baldersbey Park on 26 July, Marr would effectively switch to playing his Sherwood Green Signature Jaguar (lot 87) as his main guitar from August 2014 as he began to promote his forthcoming second album Playland. Marr was last seen with this Jag when he appeared on Daniel Steinhardt and Mick Taylor’s YouTube series That Pedal Show in October 2023, during which he demonstrated the features of the Signature model on this guitar and picked out the riffs from both the Cribs’ ‘We Share The Same Skies’ and solo single ‘New Town Velocity’.
While Fender would release the popular model in several limited edition colours over the years, the original Johnny Marr Signature Jaguar in Olympic White has remained in continuous production since its release, becoming one of Fender’s best-selling signature models. When it finally became available, wrote Marr in 2016, the Fender Johnny Marr Jaguar received the award for Best International Instrument, and that felt like a real achievement.
JOHNNY MARR, 2026
The culmination of an intensive four-year passion project to build the “perfect” Jaguar (see footnote to previous lot), which saw Marr and master guitar technician Bill Puplett make multiple modifications and refinements to the Jaguar’s original design that would be road-tested across literally hundreds of live shows, Marr’s final prototype for the Johnny Marr Signature Jaguar was submitted to Fender for their exact reproduction circa late 2010 and slated for commercial release in early 2012. It’s believed that Fender first provided Marr with a small number of pre-production prototypes in early October 2011 in order to prepare exclusive promotional features ahead of the release, one of which Marr would gift to his son Nile, whilst another would be presented to his namesake Nile Rodgers the following June.
The present guitar was among the first few production models sent to Marr when Fender finally released the Johnny Marr Signature Jaguar in January 2012. Making this signature Jaguar has been a four year journey, said Marr upon release. I've taken all the aspects of the guitar in every direction I could, to improve it without losing the classic features that I liked from the original design. It's been a labour of love and obsession, and a privilege. I've used it for everything I've done since I started making it. It's my perfect guitar.
In line with Marr’s original prototype, the Johnny Marr Signature Jaguar featured custom-wound Bare Knuckle Johnny Marr single-coil neck and bridge pickups, a custom-shaped maple neck based on Marr’s 1965 Jaguar neck, with a vintage-style truss rod and Marr’s signature on the headstock, a four-way pickup selector switch mounted to the lower horn (allowing the player to select either bridge, neck, bridge and neck in parallel, or bridge and neck in series), two upper horn slide switches for hi-pass filters (which Fender named ‘universal bright’ and ‘pickup switch position four bright’), a Jaguar bridge with Mustang saddles and nylon bridge post inserts for improved stability, and a vintage-style floating tremolo tailpiece. The absolute main criteria for me doing a guitar with Fender is that anyone can go into the shop and come out with one that’s exactly the same as the guitar I play. That had to be the case, Marr told Guitar & Bass magazine in 2012. Fender were absolutely true to their word, he acknowledged to guitar historian Tony Bacon. They even let me outsource the pickups and have them made by Bare Knuckle in the UK. They made it so that every one of my signature Jags is exactly the same as mine. And it’s been very, very successful, which makes me really proud.
From first release, the Signature Jaguar was available in Olympic White and a burnt orange finish that Marr named Metallic KO. I always loved white on white Fender guitars, wrote Marr for Fender’s promotional booklet. White guards on ‘Olympic White’ bodies. It’s also the colour of the main Jag I’ve used for the last few years. Although he wasn’t necessarily aware of it at the time, the preference for a “white on white” finish had been inspired by one of his childhood heroes. Marr told us: When I think back to my influences, the first person I ever wanted to be was Marc Bolan from T-Rex, and that showed up when I put out my first signature Jag in 2012. It was only afterwards I realised that that's why I was so attracted to putting out a white and off-white guitar, because I always remember Bolan playing a white Strat.
One of the first things Marr did before using the present guitar was to remove his signature decal from the headstock, observing to Bacon: There’s something just a bit too vain about that. It’s probable that this guitar saw significant use during the recording of Marr’s debut solo album The Messenger over the course of 2012, as indicated by the visible wear to the body when it was first seen on stage in February 2013. Marr specifically recalls recording the songs ‘The Right Thing Right’, ‘European Me’, ‘Lockdown’, and ‘New Town Velocity’ on one of his white Signature Jaguars, but as there were at least two of these white Jags in regular use at the time, it’s impossible to pin down exactly which one. Marr had first started writing the material for The Messenger while touring with The Cribs in 2010, inspired by his experiences on the road. There was an overriding aesthetic to these things I was coming up with, which made it seem like they should all be a part of a record, Marr told Stereogum in late 2012. I habitually think like a band animal, probably because I've been doing this now since I was literally 14, so I assumed that I'd put a group together and off we'd go, but within a few weeks of making demos by myself it became clear that I was already just making the record [solo]. Speaking to Q magazine in 2016, Marr reflected: I think I just got old enough to be a frontman. I didn’t know what I wanted to sing about before. When the time did come to put a band together, Marr enlisted co-producer James Doviak on second guitar and keyboards, and invited Iwan Gronow and Jack Mitchell, who he had produced when they were in the band Haven, to play bass and drums. When we went out, Marr continued, I wanted us to be the best live band in the world, which seems like an incredibly juvenile ambition, but why not? The same four-piece line-up forms Marr’s band to this day.
Two days after the release of his long-awaited solo debut, Marr was presented with NME’s Godlike Genius Award at the Troxy in London on 27 February 2013. After picking up the award, Marr strapped on this guitar to play a six-song set that featured guest appearances from The Vaccines’ Justin Young on a cover of The Crickets’ ‘I Fought The Law’, and the Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood on The Smiths’ classic ‘How Soon Is Now?’ Whilst Marr favoured one of his prototype Jags on the first few legs of The Messenger Tour from March to September 2013, he switched to this signature model as his main guitar for a further round of tour dates across the UK and US from 4 October to 26 November 2013, which included performances at London’s Roundhouse on 18 October and The Fillmore in San Francisco on 1 November 2013. My gigs were a rousing affair from the off, writes Marr in his 2016 autobiography. The album was a hit, and me and my band played all the new stuff as well as my favourites from the past. All the solo songs worked live, which meant that when it came to playing songs by The Smiths or Electronic I felt I’d represented my current direction well enough, and playing the old songs became a celebration and gave the crowd something they knew and loved. Following two nights of back-to-back shows in Los Angeles, Marr performed an intimate set for KCRW FM at producer Bob Clearmountain’s Apogee Studio on 4 November 2013. Recorded highlights, including Marr’s performance of ‘New Town Velocity’ on this guitar, were broadcast via their website on 18 November 2013. While in New York, Marr appeared on NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on 15 November 2013, wielding this Jag for a performance of the album track ‘Generate! Generate!’, as well as a web-only bonus performance of The Smiths’ ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want’.
The reverse of the body was customised with an Aldous Huxley transfer by fans Aly Stevenson and Ory Englander during Marr’s brief tour of Australia from 30 December 2013 to 7 January 2014. The transfer of the Chrysler Building was added during the UK leg of the Playland Tour in October 2014 and the image of Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel in Liverpool in early 2015. It’s probable that Marr wrote and recorded some of Playland on this guitar, as he writes: Travelling and working so much inspired me, and before I finished touring with The Messenger, I was making another album, called Playland. I would write songs on the road and then record them in between dates. In May 2014, Marr filmed an exclusive four-set performance at The Hospital Club in London for Fender Films, playing this white Jag for the songs ‘Sun and Moon’, ‘Lockdown’ and ‘I Want the Heartbeat’. After enlisting this guitar for one-off shows at Leeds’ Brudenell Social Club on 24 March and Deer Shed Festival at Baldersbey Park on 26 July, Marr would effectively switch to playing his Sherwood Green Signature Jaguar (lot 87) as his main guitar from August 2014 as he began to promote his forthcoming second album Playland. Marr was last seen with this Jag when he appeared on Daniel Steinhardt and Mick Taylor’s YouTube series That Pedal Show in October 2023, during which he demonstrated the features of the Signature model on this guitar and picked out the riffs from both the Cribs’ ‘We Share The Same Skies’ and solo single ‘New Town Velocity’.
While Fender would release the popular model in several limited edition colours over the years, the original Johnny Marr Signature Jaguar in Olympic White has remained in continuous production since its release, becoming one of Fender’s best-selling signature models. When it finally became available, wrote Marr in 2016, the Fender Johnny Marr Jaguar received the award for Best International Instrument, and that felt like a real achievement.