A collection of instruments owned by a late Blackwood musician are to be auctioned in Cardiff.
The collection, which includes Fender and Hofner guitars, accessories, several amplifiers and a Ludwig drum kit, was owned by Blackwood musician Remo Lusardi and is being auctioned by Rogers Jones and Co on Friday, March 3.
Auctioneer Ben Rogers Jones said: “It is one of the best guitar collections to have come from Wales, it is hugely impressive.
“We have already had enormous interest from all over the world, I expect them to make thousands.”
Remo Lusardi was a guitarist in 70s folk band, The Chartists, rock-band Cut and Run, and then The Albino Frogs, and died of a brain tumour in September last year, aged 64.
Fellow Frogs band member, Ian Day, said: “Remo was a brilliant and a superbly adaptable musician – a jack of all trades and a master of them too.
“His collection of guitars was the envy of us all in the band. I hope they go to someone who uses them with the joy and skill that Remo did.”
Mr Lusardi’s family were well known to the town of Blackwood, as they owned Dorothy’s Café, an iconic meeting place on Blackwood High Street for sixty years.
The Manic Street Preachers were regulars at the café in the band’s formative years, and James Dean Bradfield remembered the Lusardi family helping the band sell copies of their 1988 debut-single Suicide Alley, with Remo even lending him a guitar to play on their second release.
Frontman Bradfield said: “They were really supportive of the band at the start. They sold copies of our single and they never took any commission.
“They made us feel like we were members of the Beat Generation.”
The guitars form part of a specialist auction at Rogers Jones and Co in Cardiff, which begins at 9am on Friday March 3.