This guitar was used during Golden heart tour in 1996 on Father and son, Golden heart, Last exit to Brooklyn.

Around 1996, Crate had an advertisement in a guitar magazine in which Mark can be seen with this Pensa guitar.

This guitar was actually part of the guitar auction at Christie's in January 2024, but it was withdrawn by Mark on the 29th January, just before the actual auction on the 31st January.

The model is based on the MK2 Signature model. On 10th June 2005, the guitar was presented to Mark in Milan by Rudy Pensa.

The guitar was used during the Shangri-La tour in 2005 on Telegraph road and it was also used on the All the roadrunning tour 2006, but it looks like that Mark prefers to use his oldest 1996 Pensa MK2 as he took that one out on the road in 2008, 2010, 2013 and 2015.

Information taken from Rudy Pensa's site:

Pensa MK-D model in an awesome Frost Blue top and Pelham Blue back and sides, with natural masked binding. The maple neck features a East Indian Rosewood fingerboard and a matching Frost Blue headstock face. The playability is incredible and the attention to detail, second to none.
 

The guitar was used for the promo picture session for the Privateering album and Mark used it during the US & Canadian 2012 tour and the Privateering tour 2013 for Kingdom of gold. On the Tracker tour, the guitar was used to play Kingdom of gold and Laughs and jokes and drinks and smokes. On the Down the road wherever tour, Mark used this guitar on the song My bacon roll.
 

According to a seller on Ebay, it was made in a limited edition of just 30 guitars.
 

Click here and here for other great pictures of Mark and this Pensa. And here for another stunning photo of this guitar.

The logo applied to the headstock, Pensa CUSTOM MADE IN U.S.A. and engraved on the neckplate 0573 / 052215, the mountings and hardware gold-plated, of a blue ice metallic finish. This guitar was custom built for Mark Knopfler.


Luthier Makoto Noguchi at Pensa Custom Guitars first developed the MK-D model guitar in late 2011 as a “diet” version of the MK-1 Strat style guitar with a non-premium top wood. During a May 2012 visit to Rudy’s Music store in New York for the Sky Arts documentary Guitar Stories with Dire Straits co-founder John Illsley to discuss the guitars that have shaped his career, Mark Knopfler tried out a 2011 custom blue ice metallic MK-D with Swamp Ash body, natural binding, Lindy Fralin P-90 Soapbar pickups, a “54” neck with “soft V” shape, gold plated hardware, a Hipshot Tremolo bridge, 3 way pickup selector switch, and blue catseye cap knobs. As he played the guitar for the first time on camera in the store, Knopfler was clearly impressed with the instrument, enthusing 'You know, you can really appreciate something like this where there’s been no compromise, where every fret has been put in very carefully, every little thing that’s been drilled has been drilled absolutely precision straight.' When Illsley posits that they are talking about the Rolls Royce of guitars, Knopfler cuts in to declare it the Ferrari. According to Rudy Pensa, Mark was so taken with the guitar that he played on camera that Rudy gifted that same guitar to him after the show. The blue ice MK-D became one of Knopfler’s favourite guitars, played extensively on his last three tours.

After Knopfler began using the guitar on stage, Pensa Custom Guitars renamed this particular custom specification of the MK-D as its own model, the MK-90. This MK-90 guitar was custom built for Mark Knopfler in 2015 as a back-up for his upcoming Tracker tour. The specification is almost identical to Mark’s 2011 MK-D, with the exception of Hipshot tuners rather than Schaller, and a gold logo on the headstock rather than the gold and black logo seen on the 2011 MK-D.

Guy Fletcher posted a photo in his Tracker tour diary from Cologne, 21st June 2015. On that picture, you can see two blue guitars; the the Pensa MK-D and the MK-90.

This guitar was auctioned at Christie's in London on 31st January 2024. It was sold for 113.400 Pounds.

I found this picture on Facebook. Pensa Custom Guitars posted about this guitar aswell on 29th April 2017 on Instagram, so most likely the guitar is from 2017. MK News also posted a picture of Mark's new guitar. And here is another picture of Rudy Pensa, Mark Knopfler and a person who is unknown to me, holding the same guitars.

Mark received this guitar from Rudy Pensa in New York (most likely on 20th or 21st August 2019). The picture on the left was taken during Piper to the end in Boston, 23rd August 2019. Click here for another picture (taken by Guy Fletcher). Mark used the guitar also for My bacon roll and the outro solo of Romeo and Juliet.

Mark received this guitar from Rudy Pensa on 22nd January 2024 while Mark had about 120 guitars for auction at Christie's in London.

The decal logo, Pensa, CUSTOM, MADE IN U.S.A. at the headstock, the neckplate engraved 0550 / 042514, the body of Korina with a natural finish.


Longtime friend and Manhattan music store owner Rudy Pensa gifted this bass guitar to Mark Knopfler after his show at the Beacon Theatre, New York, on 21th October 2015 as a house instrument for British Grove Studios. Bassist Glenn Worf used the guitar to record the song Good on you son for Knopfler’s 2018 solo studio album Down the road wherever.

Knopfler told: 'I play bass very badly. There’s the wire wound and the flat wound thing. I really enjoyed having a wire wound bass, but also to keep a flat wound bass, because a lot of the records would have flat wound strings on those basses. And then I just had totally impractical things… they’re just beautiful objects. If you know what you’re doing, you can coax really good sounds out of them.'

 

This guitar was auctioned at Christie's in London on 31st January 2024. It was sold for 21.420 Pounds.