Guitar played by Harrison and Lennon auctioned for £294,000

An electric guitar played by George Harrison and John Lennon during Beatles recording sessions has been sold at auction for more than a quarter of a million pounds.

The red Gibson SG guitar fetched $567,500 (£294,000) at an auction of rock and entertainment memorabilia at Christie's in New York.

The guitar originally belonged to Harrison, who played it during the recording of the Revolver album in 1966. He later lent it to Lennon for the "White Album" sessions in 1969, before giving it to his friend Peter Ham, the leader of Badfinger. After Ham's suicide in 1974, the guitar passed to his brother John, who reportedly stored it under a bed in London until recently.

The guitar resurfaced in 2002, and has been on loan to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Ohio ever since. It was sold at the auction to an anonymous telephone bidder.

Some 70 Beatles lots went under the hammer, including a never-before-heard tape of a 1975 interview between Lennon and a journalist from The Washington Star, which fetched £27,900. The auction raised more than £1.1m.

Other items at the sale included a letter from Nirvana's troubled front man Kurt Cobain to his wife Courtney Love, detailing drug-induced hallucinations, and a book report written by pop singer Britney Spears during her school days. The report, which fetched £1,000, included a message from her teacher: "Proofread/Messy."