Mark’s father bought this guitar for him in 1964 for 50£ when Mark was just 15 years old. It was his first guitar, and at that time he couldn’t afford an amplifier so he played it through a family radio instead.
Mark’s Hofner was made in 1962, and it features red finish, celluloid strip fretboard inlays, and two type 510 “Diamond Logo” pickups. Even though it’s been more than 50 years since Mark got this guitar, he still owns it and takes a special care of it.
1959 Gibson Les Paul Special Doublecut
This is one of Mark’s earliest guitars, predating his red 1961 Stratocaster. It can be seen a photo presented during a documentary dubbed Guitar Stories, where Mark talks about six guitar that helped him define his sound.
The guitar featured double-cutaway mahogany body finished in cherry red, and two P-90 pickups.
1961 Fender Stratocaster
This Stratocaster was bought sometime prior to Dire Straits first album released in 1978. It was Mark’s first Fender Stratocaster, most likely used on the demo tape of “Sultans of Swing” and quite possibly on the album version as well.
When Mark bought the guitar the original paint was stripped down, so Mark had it repainted in red to replicate his dream guitar – Hank Marvin’s red Strat.
Mark used this guitar on the recording of the album, and as a spare for his maple necked Strat. Towards 1979 he started using this guitar more than the maple Strat, but in mid 80s he decided it was better to keep the guitar safe at his house for obvious sentimental reasons.
1962 Fender Stratocaster
This was Mark’s second Fender Stratocaster, acquired sometime in mid to late 70s. It is believed that the guitar itself was made sometime in the early 60s, and that it was actually a Japanese copy featuring maple neck which wasn’t typical for that time period on American Stratocasters.
This guitar has been a subject of many theorycrafting and people trying to figure out it’s origins. Ingo Raven at mk-guitar.com is probably most on point. He think that although some of the parts on the guitar might be Japanese, that’s not necessarily the case for the guitar as a whole. He notes that some parts seem to have been changed and gathered from different sources, hinting at a possible Part-caster. (Read the full story on mk-guitar.com)
Mark’s maple Strat was taken apart in 1982 by John Suhr, who then noticed all these irregularities and replaced the original neck with a Schecter one-piece maple neck. Soon after that, perhaps because finding out that his Strat wasn’t genuine, Mark stopped playing it altogether and moved onto Schecters and other guitars.
This guitar was allegedly sold at an auction for charity cause, although we haven’t been able to find an official listing for it.
1969 Fender Telecaster Thinline
This guitar actually belonged to David Knopfler, but Mark used it himself as a slide guitar for “Water of Love” in the early days.
The guitar was originally a Telecaster Thinline with body cavities, later modified by Mark’s friend Steve Phillips who filled in the f-holes and painted the whole thing black. It had two standard Telecaster single-coil pickups and a mahogany body.
1960s Gibson SG Custom
Played during the “Love Over Gold” tour in 1982/83, and on the studio recording of the song “Two Young Lovers”. It is also possible that he used the guitar on some other songs from the ExtendedancEPlay EP.
The model appears to be from early 60s, featuring white body finish, black “bat-wing” pickguard, and three pickups.
1980 Schecter Stratocaster Red
This guitar was purchased sometime in early 80s at Rudy Music Stop in New York among couple of other more Schecters. At the time Mark was looking for a guitar to replace his ’62 Stratocaster, and apparently he was impressed with a Schecter guitar that his girlfriend owned at the time.
Mark’s red Schecter was originally equipped with three black Schecter F500T pickups, but it seems that after few months Mark had them replaced with Seymour Duncans with white plastic covers. There’s of course a possibility that he owned two different red Schecter at that time, one of which had the original black pickups – but that’s just pure speculation.
This guitar was used from 1980 to around 1987 when Mark switched to Pensa-Suhr guitars, although he did pick it up occasionally in the 90s. It was seen at couple of most memorable Dire Straits concert, including Alchemy Live in 1983 and Live Aid in 1985.
1980 Schecter Stratocaster Sunburst
This was Mark’s second most used Schecter during the 80s. There were actually two nearly identical sunburst Schecters, one of which was stolen in the early 80s, and the other one becoming its replacement.
Both guitars were finished in sunburst, and featured brass pickguard, one-piece maple neck, and three Schecter F500T pickups. The first Schecter which was stolen had dot inlays on the neck, and the jack socket was on the front of the body, while the second one had no inlays and the jack plate was on the side.
Mark used the first Schecter on Making Movies album in 1980 after which it was stolen, and he used the second one up until around 1986 next to his red Schecter main just for the song “Tunnel of Love”. He ended up selling that guitar at an auction in 2004 and donated all the profits to Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Centre in Antigua.
1984 Schecter Telecaster
Mark bought this guitar in the 80s and first used it on the soundtrack album “Cal” released in 1984. After that he used it in the “Walk of Life” video, and kept using it from the point on while playing that same song live.
Mark’s Schecter Telecaster features red finish with white plastic binding over the top edge of the body. The pickup in it are Schecter F500Ts, and the neck has no visible inlays.
He still owns this guitar and plays it live occasionally.
1983 Gibson Les Paul Standard
Mark used an 80s Les Paul Standard on the recording of Brothers in Arms album in 1985, which he bought from Rudy Pensa circa 1984.
I could never afford to buy one from the “classic years,” so I got a reissue in the ’70s, and I recorded things like “Brothers In Arms” and “Money for Nothing” with that one, and I toured with it. – Mark Knopfler for VintageGuitar.com
There’s some confusion surrounding this guitar, about whether it’s a 70s or 80s Les Paul. Apparently the serial number of the guitar is #90006, which would place the guitar among the first batch of ’59 Les Paul Flametop reissues made in 1983. So Mark was likely misquoted or made a lapsus in saying he bought the guitar in the 70s, since most clues point towards 80s.
Be that as it may, Mark’s BiA Les Paul was made during the Norlin era – which is often characterized by decreasing product quality. It featured one piece mahogany body with two-piece flamed maple top in cherry sunburst, nickel hardware, and most likely two Gibson “Shaw” humbuckers. The switch was allegedly modified so that the middle would connect the pickups out of phase.
1985 Schecter Stratocaster
Mark acquired this guitar sometime in 1985. It was put together by John Suhr who at the time worked at Rudy’s Music Stop in New York City doing mostly just guitar repairs.
The guitar featured white finish on Schecter-made Stratocaster-style body, and a Schecter neck – shaped and styled after an original 1961 Fender Stratocaster neck. Suhr used Dunlop 6110 frets, but shaped the fretboard for a 10 inch radius when compared to a 7.25 on the original 61 Strat.
He fitted the guitar with a tortoise shell pickguard, and installed three Seymour Duncan Alnico pickups, and used an original Fender vintage-style tremolo bridge. The headstock was also decorated with a Fender decal, which confused many people into thinking that this was an original Fender.
Mark used this guitar occasionally during the BiA tour in 1985/86, and kept using it during the On Every Street tour in the 90s. It was also seen couple of times on his more recent solo tours.
1984/85 Steinberger GL2 Standard
Mark played this guitar occasionally on the song “Money For Nothing” during the later part of Brothers in Arms tour in 1986.
Mark’s GL2 is finished in black, and features one piece composite body/neck, EMG 60 humbucker in the bridge and EMG 81 in the neck. It is also equipped with a TransTrem vibrato system, which was a pretty big deal back in the day, and allowed entire chords to have their pitch bent without causing the strings to go out of tune with each other.
1988 Pensa-Suhr Custom
In 1987 Mark met with Rudy Pensa at a small coffee shop called “Prince’s” in New York. The two discussed about a possible project – a guitar which would be a sort of a crossover between a Stratocaster and a Les Paul. They agreed on the details, and drew a first sketch of this guitar on a napkin they found on the table.
The guitar was finished sometime in early 1988, and it was completely built by John Suhr who worked at Pensa music shop at the time. This particular model was supposedly something that John worked out prior to Rudy and Mark ever meeting, and the guitar was only modified to fit Mark’s needs and wishes following the input Rudy took from Mark during the infamous meeting at a coffee shop.
John used mahogany as a basis for the body, one-piece carved maple as a top, and brazilian rosewood as a fretboard material. The guitar was equipped with EMG 81 in the bridge, and EMG SA in the middle and neck position – all mounted from the back. This was all controlled with two knobs – a regular volume knob, and a EMG SPC push/pull knob which added the gain boost. Tuners on it were Sperzels, and a Floyd Rose locking tremolo was installed – although Mark didn’t use it that much.
This guitar is perhaps best known for its appearance on Nelson Mandela 70th birthday concert played in June 1988. Fun trivia about this gig is that Dire Straits were allowed to play under one condition – the band needed to rehearse for the event because they haven’t been on tour for some time and had even disbanded temporarily. So the first time Mark ever picked up this guitar was at the rehearsal event at Hammersmith Odeon on June 8th 1988.
This guitar was one of Mark’s main in the late 80s and early 90s – used extensively during the On Every Street tour. Since then Mark grew accustomed to fatter necks of his Gibson Les Pauls, and eventually stopped using this guitar altogether.
1953 Gibson Custom Super 400 CES
Mark used this guitar on Fade to Black and On Every Street from the 1991 album, and occasionally live on Your Latest Trick.
The guitar features blonde finish, archtop design, and two Alnico V pickups. Mark’s guitar was built sometime in 1953 and featured slightly thicker top when compared to the earlier models to reduce feedback.
First Super 400 was built in 1934 and it was named after it’s price, $400 (around $7,000 in today’s value). It was hugely popularized by Scotty Moore, who played a 1963 model in Elvis Presley’s stage performance, the ’68 Comeback Special.
1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard
This is Mark’s second vintage Les Paul. Although considered by many to be the more desirable of the two, Mark actually uses his ’58 Les Paul more often than this one. It’s not clear when exactly he bought this guitar, but presumably it was around the same time as his other Les Paul – so mid to late 90s.
The guitar features a lot less faded finish when compared to his 58 Les Paul, so the two can easily be easily distinguished if you know where to look.
Basically, all of the late 50s Les Pauls originally featured similar cherry red sunburst finish, but due to the use of ultra-violet sensitive dye on some of them, lots of those guitars lost their original red accents mostly due to exposure to the sun. Mark’s ’59 Les Paul got to keep most of that original red finish, while his ’58 is almost completely free from it – except for that small patch of red around the toggle switch.
1954 Fender Telecaster
This guitar is allegedly one of the Mark’s favorites. He started using it in the early 90s with Notting Hillbillies, and still plays it occasionally it nowadays.
Mark’s Telecaster features one piece maple neck, ash body with Butterscotch Blonde finish, and two original Fender single-coil pickups.
Acoustic Guitars
1937 National Duolian Resonator
Mark bought this guitar in 1978 from Steve Phillips, with whom he met in 1969 working as a journalist for The Yorkshire Evening Post. Eventually the two became close and started playing together in local pubs under a stage name “The Duolian String Pickers”.
Mark retrofitted this guitar with L.R. Baggs transducer, and used it on Telegraph Road from the 1982 album “Love over Gold”, and Romeo and Juliet from the 1980 album “Making Movies”.
Gibson Chet Atkins CE
Played live during Love over Gold tour on Private Investigations, and on Love over Gold.
