DHAKA: The electric guitar played by Bob Dylan at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival has been sold at auction in New York for a record $965,000 (£591,000).

The Fender Stratocaster had been in the possession of a New Jersey family for 48 years after he left it on a plane, reports BBC.

The pilot`s daughter had it authenticated on a television programme on US broadcaster PBS.

The festival in Newport, Rhode Island, is often cited as the performance where Dylan "went electric".

Dylan`s move "changed the structure of folk music", Newport Folk Festival founder George Wein, 88, told the Associated Press news agency.

"The minute Dylan went electric, all these young people said, `Bobby`s going electric. We`re going electric, too.`"

But at the time, the three-song set drew boos from the crowd, who had come expecting Dylan`s traditional acoustic folk performance.

Dawn Peterson said on the PBS programme History Detectives that her father, the private plane`s pilot, asked Dylan`s management firm what to do with the guitar but nobody ever got back to him.

Experts matched the wood grain on the instrument with a close-up colour photo taken during Dylan`s set at the festival.

Recently, Dylan and Ms Peterson quietly settled a legal dispute over the instrument. Details of the settlement are not known.

Auction house Christie`s had estimated the guitar would sell for $300,000-$500,000. The buyer has not been identified.

The previous record for a guitar sold at auction was a Fender owned by Eric Clapton, nicknamed "Blackie", which sold at Christie`s for $959,500 in 2004.

BDST: 0907 HRS, DEC 07, 2013