Sir Paul McCartney has been reunited with his bass guitar, which the Beatle used on famous tracks such as Twist And Shout and She Loves You, after it went missing more than 50 years ago.

A spokesman for the former Beatle said he is “incredibly grateful” for those who were involved in helping to locate the Hofner bass guitar, which went missing in 1972.

The Lost Bass Project launched a search to find the missing German violin-shaped bass in 2018, but traction picked up last year after further media attention.

The team, which included Nick Wass from Hofner and husband and wife team Scott and Naomi Jones, received more than 100 leads which they used to help track down the missing guitar.

Among the tip-offs, the project said they were given information that claimed the guitar had been stolen from the back of a van in 1972 in Notting Hill in London.

They later discovered the bass was allegedly sold to a landlord in the area before it was passed on until it ended up in the attic of a terraced house in the south coast of England.

The project said the owner realised they had the highly-sought-after item following the publicity last year.

The bass is still complete and in its original case but will need some repairs to make it playable again, the project added in their statement.

A post on Sir Paul’s official website read: “Following the launch of last year’s Lost Bass project, Paul’s 1961 Hofner 500/1 bass guitar, which was stolen in 1972, has been returned.

“The guitar has been authenticated by Hofner and Paul is incredibly grateful to all those involved.”

The bass had been purchased for 30 pounds in Hamburg, Germany, in 1961 by Sir Paul and was used during his time with The Beatles.

His career-long use of the guitar led to it to being dubbed the “Beatle bass”.

Sir Paul played the Hofner on the Fab Four’s first two albums, Please Please Me and With The Beatles, as well as on a slew of hits including Love Me Do.

A statement from The Lost Bass project said: “We are extremely proud that we played a major part in finding the Lost Bass.

“It has been a dream since 2018 that it could be done. Despite many telling us that it was lost forever or destroyed, we persisted until it was back where it belonged.

“We want to thank everyone who helped with the search, all those who sent us leads and ideas and many who just wanted to lend their support to us. Thank you all so very much. Very much indeed! We did it!”

– AAP