A GUITAR used by the late George Harrison and John Lennon at some of the Beatles’ most important recording sessions could break auction sale records when it comes under the hammer in New York this week.

The only obstacle may be the bad mojo that appears to be attached to the instrument. All the musicians who have played it have died.

The cherry red Gibson SG guitar, dating from 1964, belonged to Harrison and was used by him for the last three years of the Beatles’ existence, including sessions for the Revolver album, which included Eleanor Rigby and Here, There and Everywhere.

Lennon played the guitar during the band’s White Album sessions in 1969. Harrison then gave it to Pete Ham of Badfinger, a group on the Beatles’ Apple record label who had a hit with No Matter What and wrote the number one bestseller Without You for Harry Nilsson.

When Ham hanged himself at the age of 28 in 1975, the guitar was stored away for 28 years by John Ham, his brother. It was rediscovered two years ago when the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, contacted Ham in preparation for a Badfinger retrospective. He allowed it to be displayed for two years before deciding to sell it.

Christie’s, the auctioneer, has put an estimate of $500,000 (£261,000) on the lot in Friday’s auction. The record price for a guitar is $959,500, paid for Blackie, one of Eric Clapton’s favourites, in June. He sold it to raise money for an addiction treatment centre he helped set up in Antigua.

That eclipsed the price two years earlier for Tiger, the guitar of Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead’s late leader, by just £1,000. The pre-sale estimate on the Clapton guitar was $200,000.

A Fender Stratocaster played by Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock is believed to have sold for much more but that was in a private sale.

Darren Julien, a guitar specialist and auctioneer who has helped arrange this week’s sale, said: “John Ham put the guitar under his bed for a quarter of a century so it is a newly recovered part of rock’n’roll history.

“There is a lot of buzz around this guitar and it has all the makings of a great success story.

“The fact that George Harrison is no longer with us can only add to its intrinsic value.”

An acoustic guitar which Harrison’s parents bought him at the age of 13 for £2.50 sold for £276,000 at an auction of pop memorabilia in London last year. Harrison once described it as a “cheapo, horrible little guitar”.

After the Beatle’s death, his estate sued an American doctor who allegedly pressed him to sign a guitar as he lay dying of cancer.

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