Paul McCartney has been reunited with his long lost Höfner bass, which was stolen in 1972.

After an appeal by the Lost Bass project, a family in Sussex contacted the group informing them they had an old bass guitar sitting in their attic.

"There were no leads, no evidence really where it might be," the team behind the project told the the BBC.

"To have found it quite quickly is amazing and we've heard how thrilled Paul McCartney is to have it back. That's just the icing on the cake to know that bloke we all love is smiling tonight because his old guitar is back."

The instrument, complete with its original case, was retrieved last September and verified by experts. It was allegedly stolen from a van in London’s Ladbroke Grove in 1972, before being sold to a local pub landlord and eventually making its way to Sussex.

The Beatle bought the bass for an estimated £30 during the Fab Four’s stint in Hamburg in 1961. While it is yet to be evaluated, experts reckon it could become the most expensive guitar ever sold – topping Kurt Cobain’s Martin D-18E used during his iconic MTV Unplugged set, which fetched $6m (€5.57m) at an auction in 2020.