Maybe it's due to the credit crunch or possibly rock music is just safer these days but you don't see people smash their guitars so much any more.

In fact, smashed guitars have become collectors items in their own right. Previously available at the bargain Buy It Now price of £1900 on eBay is a Charvel Jackson guitar Trent Reznor of the Nine Inch Nails smashed at some unspecified gig between 1990 and 1991.

As the description puts it "this is a very rare thing as some of the guitars Trent smashed were fixed so he could play them again". Yep and I bet they sounded real good. Also sold on eBay, but less severely wrecked, is the broken guitar once belonging to Paul Stanley of Kiss

If you're a connoisseur of guitar destruction you might enjoy this old list of YouTube clips of both amateurs and professionals like Pete Townshend practicing the art.

The Who's guitarist broke his first guitar by accident when playing in a small club with a low ceiling and got so annoyed that no one in the audience noticed that bounced around the stage smashing it pieces. After that it became something of a habit

Happily axe abuse is still alive and well as the ultimate sacrifice in Guitar Hero. Here's a brilliant compilation of players taking the rock game just a little too seriously.