John's Jumbo Gibson was never stolen?

The two guitars in action on Late Scene Extra.

There was a big discussion in the comments section of this blog post about whether or not John Lennon's 1962 "Jumbo" J160E Gibson guitar rightfully belongs to the current owner of the instrument. As you know, Lennon and Harrison had one of these each, and at some point George ended up with Lennon's guitar. Peter Hodgson has now tipped us off that the guitar may never have been stolen in the first place!
For the mimed performances of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "This Boy" on Granada TV's Late Scene Extra 27 November 1963, both guitars were employed. In a video clip from 1976 of George Harrison watching the Late Scene Extra performance of "This Boy", George bursts out, "I gave that guitar away"!


As we know that one of the guitars (actually Lennon's) is still in the Harrison collection of guitars now owned by George's son Dhani, George must have given his own away and kept Lennon's.

The once Beatle-owned J160E Gibson guitar is currently on a tour of being displayed at various places before it will be auctioned off at Julien’s Auctions Icons & Idols Rock n’ Roll Auction event to be held on November 6th & 7th, 2015.