Just when you think there could not possibly be another book saying anything new about the Beatles comes Beatles Gear (Backbeat Books, 2001). This book details exactly which guitars, drums, amplifiers and keyboards the Beatles used at the key points of their relatively brief but entirely revolutionary career—from the formation of the Quarry Men skiffle group in the 1960s to the dissolution of the Beatles in 1970. It provides a fascinating fresh insight into Beatle history from an entirely new viewpoint, and along the way many myths are exploded and dozens of stories told for the first time. John, Paul, George and Ringo’s moves from cheap early instruments to the pick of 1960s technology is carefully and entertainingly documented in an easy-to-read narrative, fully illustrated with many unseen photographs, a cache of rare memorabilia and a unique collection of specially-photographed actual Beatle instruments.

Andy Babiuk, who has worked at the House of Guitars for more than 20 years, perceived the need for a book about the Beatles’ gear when he tried to emulate some of their recorded sounds for his own band. He then embarked on six years of research, during which he interviewed over 400 people who worked with or were closely associated with the Beatles, listened to hundreds of recordings, watched miles of film and amassed a vast library of documents and photographic evidence of the Beatles using their instruments and equipment. Beatles Gear is perfect for the fan absorbed by music, rather than hairstyles, for the tribute-band member with an eye for detail and for any reader with an abiding interest in the 1960s. It gets right inside the music and how it all began, such as this excerpt describing how John Lennon got his first guitar:

Lennon was a restless 16-year-old when skiffle hit, and along with his schoolmate Pete Shotton they started their own group. At first they were called The Black Jacks, but soon became The Quarry Men – as at first all the members went to Quarry Bank Grammar. The group started to play at parties and church dances. The first line-up consisted of Lennon on guitar, Shotton on washboard, Eric Griffiths on guitar, Rod Davis on banjo, Colin Hanton on drums, and Bill Smith on the tea-chest bass. Smith was later replaced by Ivan Vaughan, then Nigel Whalley, and finally Len Garry.

John Lennon, African guitar player

The band’s equipment was primitive, but that was one of skiffle’s requirements. Lennon’s guitar was a Gallotone Champion, which he ordered from a newspaper ad. There is a much-repeated story that Aunt Mimi bought Lennon his first guitar for £17, but that is not true. Mimi did later buy Lennon a guitar that involved her parting with £17, but it was not his first.

Lennon’s biographer Ray Coleman described how Lennon first tried to coax his aunt and then his mother into buying him a guitar. Mimi wouldn’t because she thought it would affect his studies. Undeterred, Lennon ordered a guitar and had it sent to Julia’s address, figuring that way he would run less risk of being scolded by Mimi. This was the Gallotone Champion. In 1964 Lennon recalled, "I was about 14 when I got my first guitar. It was a beat-up old Spanish model which cost about ten quid. It was advertised in Reveille magazine as ‘guaranteed not to split’." The Gallotone Champion flat-top acoustic guitar was crudely constructed, about three-quarter size compared to a regular model, and made from laminated woods, unlike the solid material employed for better instruments.

The South African-based Gallo company had been started when Eric Gallo opened his Brunswick record shop in Johannesburg in 1926, but gradually Gallo began to expand as they took on the South African distribution and manufacturing for big labels such as Decca and CBS, and in 1946 became Gallo (Africa) Ltd. Various subsidiary businesses began, and in the late 1930s Gallo set up a small factory next to their Johannesburg premises to build Singer-brand guitars, banjos, ukuleles and mandolins. Around 1946 the instrument factory was moved to a larger, more modern facility in Jacobs, an industrial suburb of Durban. At about the same time the company changed the name of its record imprint to Gallotone, and after a complaint from the Singer sewing machine company the instrument brandname was also changed. For more than two decades Gallo built stringed instruments for the South African market and conducted a large export business. The operation shut down in about 1969, although Gallo continues in the music and video business today.

Inevitably, Gallo’s guitars found their way to Britain, where they were marketed through a number of outlets to supply the demand for cheap beginners’ instruments. The Champion was the cheapest Gallotone; around 1955 it was being offered at a wholesale price of £2/10/-. This means it probably would have retailed in the UK for around £6 (about $17 then, and in the region of £90 or $125 when translated into today’s buying power). The general sound and playability of the Champion reflected its low price. Inside the soundhole was a label that did indeed claim: "GUARANTEED NOT TO SPLIT", and some versions added: "Specially manufactured to withstand all climatic conditions." Even, presumably, the heat of the South African sun. Like many budget guitars of the day, it was probably torture to play. But none of this hindered Lennon’s ambition.

"When I was young I played the guitar like a banjo, with the sixth string hanging loose," Lennon remembered later. "I always thought Lonnie and Elvis were great, and all I ever wanted to do was to vamp," he said, meaning to play simple chords to accompany songs. "I got some banjo things off OK, [and later] George and Paul came along and taught me other things. My first guitar cost me £10, advertised in the paper. Why did I get it? Oh, the usual kid’s desire to get up on stage, I suppose. And also my mother said she could play any stringed instrument. She did teach me a bit."

Former Quarry Men banjo-player Rod Davis also disagrees with the story that Mimi bought Lennon his first guitar for £17. "The very first guitars that I remember John and Eric Griffiths having were almost identical, and I don’t think they would have cost more than £5. Eric’s was a lighter coloured wood, John’s more of a brownish-red. My recollection is that John got a mail-order guitar from one of the newspapers. It had a treble clef on the headstock, between the machine-heads. The strings weren’t attached to the bridge; they went over the bridge and to a tailpiece."

Davis points out that a cheap first guitar was unlikely to cost as much as £17 – which would be the equivalent in today’s money of about £250, or $350. "That was an awful lot in those days," he says. "Even a few years later, in 1960, when I first started work before I went to university, I was only getting £5 a week, and that was a lot of money. So £17 would have been a bloody fortune for a guitar." Davis says that the strings they used were mostly Cathedral-brand banjo strings and all roundwound, in other words with round wire wrapped around the central core, as opposed to flatwound strings which have a flatter, smoother surface. "Flatwounds were available," he says, "but they were a lot more expensive – and we were at the bottom of the market."

He recalls that Lennon thrashed his Gallotone guitar and frequently broke strings. "So then he’d take my banjo and play that, and I would have the job of re-stringing his guitar ready for the next number. I frequently held that guitar and put strings on it for him. In fact, he would play it so furiously that he’d take the skin off his index finger and spray blood into his guitar. So somewhere somebody’s got a guitar with brown stains inside, under the soundhole – which is John’s old guitar."

A Gallotone Champion was sold for a considerable sum in 1999 by Sotheby’s as Lennon’s original guitar. The auction catalogue related that in the 1980s Aunt Mimi had donated this restored instrument – in a trunk with various other items – to a Liverpool charity that asked for her articles owned by Lennon. Among other items with the guitar in the sale was a typed and undated letter signed "Mimi", agreeing to the request.

"I must admit I didn’t know these things still existed until John asked me to sort out his bits and pieces from the old days and send them on to [New York]," the letter states. "The poor old guitar was in such a state when I found it I had it professionally repaired." The auctioned guitar had indeed been restored, including a completely new paint finish, and (presumably done at the same time) a plaque added to the headstock reading: "Remember You’ll Never Earn Your Living By It". The sale catalogue says the plaque referred back "to a remark [Mimi] is reported to have made out of exasperation with the hours John spent practising rather than studying".

*Andy Babiuk is a musician and writer and is staff consultant to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.