TEISCO, JAPAN, CIRCA 1966-1969

Mark Knopfler purchased this guitar from Sound Stage Studio in Nashville, Tennessee, in July 2006. Although the 2007 single 'True Love Will Never Fade' was recorded on one of his red Teisco Spectrum 5 guitars (see lot 72), Knopfler opted to record the official music video for the song using this ivory Spectrum 5 instead, perhaps finding that it would appear brighter and bolder in black and white. Filmed at British Grove Studios in January 2007, the simple video saw Knopfler leading his full band in a mellow studio performance of the meandering ballad, the monochrome shots of guitar strumming interspersed with British seaside scenes in muted colour. The filming of the music video, showing the guitar in colour, can be seen in the Kill To Get Crimson official album documentary directed by Tom Bird.

When BBC Radio 2 host Johnnie Walker asked Mark about the ‘fancy guitar with a row of coloured buttons on the top’ during a promotional appearance on 16 September 2007 in support of the forthcoming album release, Mark laughingly replied: 'Yeah with the radiogram buttons on it… yeah that’s an old Japanese thing. I’ve got a few of those. Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of cheap, weird and wacky guitars as well as proper ones!'