On July 31, Heritage Auctions will offer 112 guitars from the extraordinary and expansive museum-quality Neal Schon Collection, among them two of the guitars that shaped Journey's sound and the soundtrack for several generations.

The auction takes place the very week Journey returns to the stage as one of the Lollapalooza headliners in Chicago. Past and present collide as Schon looks to the future: Journey has also just finished its 15th studio album, its first in a decade.

"These are guitars I've been collecting for a very long time," Schon says, "and it's time to let go of some of my collection to make room for new arrivals."

At the heart of this auction is the 1977 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe Black Solid Body that Schon used on 1981's chart-topping Escape. The Paul heard on "Don't Stop Believin'," "Stone In Love," "Who's Crying Now". The one heard - and seen - during The Escape Tour, whose November 1981 Houston stop was originally broadcast on MTV then turned into a best-selling DVD in 2005. All by itself, the band's performance of "Don't Stop Believin'" from that show has been viewed more than 122 million times on YouTube.

The '77 Les Paul, Schon says with just a touch of understatement, "has quite a story."

"When I heard the final mix of 'Don't Stop Believin',' I turned around to everybody, and I go, 'Man, you know what? This song has something else,'" Schon recalls. "Honestly, that song has the weirdest and most unique arrangement ever. It goes verse, then into the guitar solo — the little breakdown that's more like a symphony. I actually learned it by listening to symphonies, that triplet that speeds up. It sounded like a train. And that pushed [Steve Perry and Jonathan Cain] to write the lyrics, because it reminded them of a train. So the guitar solo actually came before the lyrics did."

The '77 Les Paul will be joined by another iconic guitar with its own rich history that dates back to Journey's earliest hit-making days: the 1974 Guild F-50R Natural Acoustic he used to write "Wheel In The Sky" and "Patiently," crafted with Perry in a Denver hotel room not so long after they first met in 1977. That guitar can be heard all over 1978's Infinity, on which Journey journeyed from its hard-prog and jazz-rock roots toward the sound that made them radio darlings - and prom-dance heroes - by that year's end.

Read more at Heritage Auctions. A detailed list of the guitars being auctioned can be found here.

Journey - who's current lineup also includes singer Arnel Pineda, keyboardist Jonathan Cain, bassist Randy Jackson, keyboardist/singer Jason Derlatka, and drummer Narada Michael Walden - have released their new single, "The Way We Used To Be".

Stream the single via your preferred platform here, and watch the official music video for the song below:

Journey recently issued the following update: "We will be performing at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas, NV on September 18. Tickets available Friday, June 25th at JourneyMusic.com!"