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In the 70s and 80s, lefty guitar was much more rare and expensive than right handed guitar. Many contemporary guitarists at the time who come from working class background like Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Billy Corgan, and Elvis Costello are all left-handed but play right handed guitar.
From wikipedia
Blinken was born on April 16, 1962, in Yonkers, New York. His father was Donald M. Blinken, a co-founder of the private equity firm Warburg Pincus who later served as the U.S. ambassador to Hungary. Blinken's uncle, Alan Blinken, served as the U.S. ambassador to Belgium.
Of course
Playing right handed guitars wasn't a poor thing, they just didn't make that many back in the 60's (still don't really). Also, Eric Clapton is not left handed. He had a story about finding a rare lefty strat that he picked up for Jimi in the states and brought back to England, but Jimi passed away before he could give it to him.
Blinken is however playing an Gibson ES-335, which the standard model alone is easily out of reach of working class players, and knowing him it's a likely Custom Shop model. That's more than a year of rent to most of this site.
It's hard to tell at this resolution, but I'm pretty sure that's an Epiphone, not a Gibson -- the first letter in the logo looks like an E instead of a G, there are too many letters' descenders/"tails" hanging below the baseline at the beginning of the logo, and the headstock shape isn't as flared/shallow as a Gibson. That's like a $600 guitar brand new.
Comparison images:
OP, I really do not appreciate you making me white-knight
on behalf of left-handed guitar players. Report to [email protected] immediately for reeducation.
Edit: OK, yeah, that's an Epiphone. I found a grainy but super-high-res alternate photo from Reuters; here's a closeup of the headstock:
Taken from here:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/blinken-guitar-hand-tells-ukraine-keep-rockin-free-world-2024-05-14/
doing godโs work in this thread, bless u