John,
Ultimately, Number One is priceless. It simply means too much
to too many people, some of whom have massive resources, to pin an
actual value on the instrument. It's certainly as valuable as some of
the most storied artifacts of the celebrity culture - off the top of my
head, Paul McCartney's Hofner bass, Hendrix' Stratocaster, B.B. King's
Lucille ES-335 (any of the 26 of them), Number One, and Eddie Van
Halen's Frankenstein are probably the five most valuable guitars on the
planet, in any given order. And they're all priceless, capable of
setting off a riot in the most genteel auction house in the world.
TimD