A guitar once owned by John Lennon has sold at auction for $2.4m (£1.5m).

It is thought that the acoustic Gibson J-160E was used by the musician to pen and record Beatles tracks like 'Love Me Do' and 'I Want to Hold Your Hand'.

The instrument went on sale at an auction in California recently.

It is one of only two that were flown from the US to England in 1962 for Lennon and his bandmate George Harrison.

Lennon owned it for a year until he swapped it with Harrison, with the guitar's whereabouts going unknown until 2014.

John McCaw from San Diego bought the guitar for $275 in the late 1960s.

He did not know its history until he spotted a photo of the guitar in a magazine article about George Harrison.

Experts used photos and video footage to confirm its authenticity.

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