Tiger was Jerry Garcia

Jerry Garcia

Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia was an American musician best known for his lead guitar work, singing and songwriting with the band the Grateful Dead...

's main guitar

Electric guitar

An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...

 from 1979 to 1989. It was built by Sonoma County luthier Doug Irwin. The Tiger is named after the tiger

Tiger

The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...

 inlaid on the preamp cover located on the guitar's top, just behind the tailpiece. The body features several layers of wood laminated together face-to-face in a configuration referred to as a "Hippie sandwich" by employees of Alembic Inc

Alembic Inc

Alembic was founded in 1969 and is a manufacturer of high-end electric basses, guitars and preamps.-History:Ron and Susan Wickersham founded Alembic, Inc. in 1969...

., where Irwin worked for a brief period in the early 1970s. The combination of several heavy varieties of wood, plus solid brass binding and hardware results in an unusually heavy instrument that tips the scales at 13½ pounds. After Garcia began using a new Irwin guitar (known as "Rosebud") in December 1989, Tiger became his backup guitar. Due to a problem with Rosebud during the Grateful Dead

Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...

 concert on July 9, 1995, Tiger was the last guitar Garcia played publicly.

Electronics

The electronics of Garcia's Irwin guitars are unique, and feature an onboard preamp and effects loop. Much like a Stratocaster, the three pickups are selected with a five-way switch. From the switch, the signal passes through a op-amp based buffer preamp, which is designed to prevent signal loss due to capacitance when long cables are used. From the preamp, the signal could be routed via a switch on the guitar's face to pass through a cable to Garcia's effects rack, and then back into the guitar. This onboard effects loop serves to send the full output of Tiger's pickups to the effects while allowing the guitar's tone and volume controls to vary the final output. The effects loop could be bypassed by the aforementioned switch, sending the guitar's signal from the preamp to the tone and volume controls, and then out to Garcia's preamped Fender

Fender

Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, commonly referred to as simply Fender, of Scottsdale, Arizona is a manufacturer of stringed instruments and amplifiers, such as solid-body electric guitars, including the Stratocaster and the Telecaster...

 Twin Reverb into a pair of McIntosh

McIntosh Laboratory

McIntosh Laboratory is an American manufacturer of high-end audio equipment based in Binghamton, New York. The company was founded in 1949 by Frank McIntosh,. The "classic" vacuum tube components of the 1960s include the MC275 power amplifier, the C22 preamplifier, and the MR67 tuner...

 MC2300 solid state power amplifiers. Tiger started with DiMarzio

DiMarzio

DiMarzio, Inc. is an United States manufacturer best known for its revolutionary direct-replacement guitar pickups. The company also produces miscellaneous guitar accessories, such as cables, straps and hardware.DiMarzio became known for its Super Distortion model, which was the first after...

 Dual Sound humbucker

Humbucker

A humbucker is a type of electric guitar pickup, first patented by Seth Lover and the Gibson company, that uses two coils, both generating string signal. Humbuckers have higher output than a single coil pickup since both coils are connected in series...

s in the middle and bridge positions with a DiMarzio SD-1 single coil

Single coil

A single coil pickup is a type of magnetic transducer, or pickup, for the electric guitar and the electric bass. It electromagnetically converts the vibration of the strings to an electric signal...

 at the neck. The humbuckers were switched to Dimarzio Super II's in 1982. Each of the humbuckers is equipped with a coil cut switch. There is one master volume control. One tone control affects the neck and bridge pickups; the other controls the middle pickup.

Disposition

After Garcia's death, a dispute arose between Irwin and the Grateful Dead regarding ownership of Garcia's Irwin guitars. In his will, Garcia gave possession of these instruments to Irwin; the Grateful Dead challenged whether Garcia had the right to convey title and insisted that the band owned the instruments. The parties reached a settlement where Irwin was awarded Garcia's more famous instruments, and the Grateful Dead took possession of the majority of the guitars. Irwin sold his guitars, the Tiger and the Wolf, at auction on May 8, 2002. The Tiger was purchased by Jim Irsay

Jim Irsay

James Irsay is the owner and CEO of the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League.-Biography:...

for USD 850,000.