£100,000 tag on Macca's first guitar

The first guitar Paul McCartney ever played is expected to fetch more than £100,000 at auction this month.

Schoolboy McCartney learned his first chords on the Rex acoustic guitar, belonging to friend Ian James.

The instrument comes with a letter from McCartney stating: "The above guitar belonging to my old school pal Ian James was the first guitar I ever held. It was also the guitar on which I learnt my first chords in his house at 43 Elswich Street, Liverpool 8."

At a summer fete in 1957, at the age of 15, McCartney persuaded John Lennon to let him join his band, The Quarrymen, by teaching him those same chords. McCartney once said: "I showed him a few more chords he didn't know. Ian James had taught me them, really."

The 64-year-old salesman, a married father-of-two of Ormskirk, Lancs, is selling the guitar on 28 July at Abbey Road Studios to help fund his retirement.