Purple Reign : Prince’s Guitar Collection

I originally went out and collected the photos you see here back on June 25th, 2009. That was 25 years after the release of Purple Rain. That album - for the movie of the same name - was released on June 25th, 1984. Today I humbly present a small photo collection of the many varied guitars of Prince.

ORIGINAL:

Today 25 years ago, the most purplicious funkadelic sexstravaganza of all time was released : Purple Rain. In celebration of it’s continued fantasy effect on the earth, this post contains a modest collection of images of Prince’s one true love: his guitar.

Behold the leopard printed Hohner Telecaster aka “Te Prinz”, the white triangletudes of the futuristic Auerswald Model C, the ultra-iconic perfection Symbol, and of course, the Purple Rain Minneapolis original, the Cloud. Plus very once in a great while there’s a straggler; you’ll know em when you see em.

• Golden Symbol: http://web.archive.org/web/20151121082037/http://www.symbol-guitar.com:80/page1/page1.html
• Auerswald Model C (so futuristic!): http://web.archive.org/web/20080614094957/http://www.guitarnoize.com/blog/comments/auerswald_model_c/
• Mad Cat Telecaster "Te Prinz": http://web.archive.org/web/20140116194604/http://www.photopix.ch/guitar/
• The story of Prince's Cloud: http://web.archive.org/web/20070627041548/http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2006/05/epic-story-of-princes-cloud-guitar.html

Thanks for contributions from jsmooth995, kirstography, jemi9OD, nikki319camille, toddrwaters319, infomofo, byrdmn2, derekBBB, buschap, ejk, mj2035, gazamr, TIME, toto69, joshlambert, P.H.G., Getty, Shirley’s, Styling Gel, vyssla, platipibri, Dara Baby D, Lynne Sladky, Naviance Visuals, and for the amazing illustration by Nikki319Camille.

Once upon a time there were links in the contributions section, but they’ve all expired in the years between the original article and now. Let me know if you’ve taken one of the photos below and I’ll be sure to link you in!