A Höfner bass guitar bought by Paul McCartney in 1961 has been returned to the former Beatle after a global search to find the stolen instrument.

The distinctively shaped guitar, bought by McCartney before his rise to stardom and reportedly his favourite, was last seen around the time the Beatles were recording their final album to be released, Let It Be.

McCartney paid £30 for the bass guitar 63 years ago, equivalent to about £800 at today’s prices.

A search to find the missing violin-shaped bass, a German-made Höfner 500/1, was launched by the Lost Bass Project last year, and on Tuesday a student, Ruaidhri Guest, shared a photograph on social media of the elusive instrument.

Guest claimed he had inherited it, adding that it had since been returned to its original owner.

“To my friends and family I inherited this item which has been returned to Paul McCartney. Share the news,” he posted on X.

McCartney’s bass – which could now be worth as much as £10m – became synonymous with the versatile musician during the early days of the Beatles. It was bought when the then unknown group were touring nightclubs in Hamburg, Germany, in the early 1960s.

A statement on McCartney’s website said: “Following the launch of last year’s Lost Bass Project, Paul’s 1961 Höfner 500/1 bass guitar, which was stolen in 1972, has been returned.

“The guitar has been authenticated by Höfner and Paul is incredibly grateful to all those involved.”

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, investigators Scott and Naomi Jones said how they traced the guitar to a pub in west London.

“Initially, people thought the bass went missing in 1969 around January when the Beatles were at Beatles HQ in Savile Row in central London, that famous last performance up on the roof.

“The first surprise was to find out that it had actually been stolen in 1972 from the back of the van, and by that point, obviously the Beatles had split up and Paul had started Wings and it was a Wings roadie van that was parked in Ladbroke Grove that night in October 72 when the bass was stolen,” Scott said.

When the Lost Bass Project attracted media attention last year, the pair received more than 600 calls and emails with tips about the guitar’s possible whereabouts. “So we just filtered through all of those emails and we listened to all of the calls and we found some fantastic leads,” Scott said.

“One of the great things about this project is there’s been such fantastic energy, so many people have wanted to help, give up their time, or have wanted to give information to us and so the next step really was getting information from the roadie Ian Horne, who was able to tell us where it was stolen, and when it was stolen.”

The thief took the bass to his local pub when he realised it was “too hot to handle” and asked the landlord to stash it, Scott added.

“[The guitar] has not left that family so we went to the landlord’s house. The home above the pub, and it stayed in that family for the last 51 years,” he said.

“We thought when we started this search it could have been anywhere in the world. So there are big collectors in Japan, we have stories come in and it could be in a millionaire’s house in Jamaica, and yet actually the geography of all of this is just a few miles in and around Notting Hill.”

McCartney has previously said he “fell in love” with the instrument because, unlike many electric guitars, it had a symmetrical shape. “For about £30, I found this Höfner violin bass,” said McCartney, 81. “And to me, because I was left-handed, it looked less daft because it was symmetrical. I got into that. And once I bought it, I fell in love with it.”

It would go on to become a familiar sight, with McCartney using it for live performances between 1961 and 1963, before it finally went missing shortly before the Beatles split up in 1970.

Höfner helped out with the Lost Bass Project’s unlikely search for the instrument by creating the hashtag #tracingthebass, encouraging people from all over the globe to help find it.

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Höfner executive Nick Wass told the Sunday Telegraph: “I’ve worked closely with Paul McCartney’s team over the years, and when I’ve met Paul we’ve talked about his first Höfner bass and where it could be today.

“Paul said to me, ‘Hey, because you’re from Höfner, couldn’t you help find my bass?’ And that’s what sparked this great hunt.”

The brand has been McCartney’s choice throughout his career and the company owes much of its success to the former Beatle’s endorsement. He has owned four Höfner basses since 1961, and still plays one given to him by the manufacturer.

Wass said the bass could now be valued “more like a Van Gogh or a Picasso than just an instrument”, adding: “This is the bass Paul played in Hamburg, at the Cavern Club and at Abbey Road.”

In 1963, the guitar John Lennon used to write I Want to Hold Your Hand disappeared during the band’s Christmas show at Finsbury Park, according to the project. It resurfaced 51 years later, selling for $2.4m at auction.

• Paul McCartney
• The Beatles
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