I thought I had a guitar stolen 2 years ago at a show I played in another town. I didn't even think of it being stolen or anything until a couple months later, because of all the gear we were moving at the time...I figured it got covered up somewhere. After a few months, I started wondering and began to contact the bands we played with, asking if they knew of it's whereabouts. None of them did.
A couple of days ago, this guy from another town over hits me up on my myspace and says he has this guitar that he was pretty sure I could do justice for and wanted to trade me a motorcycle for it or something. He described it, and I was like "wtf? That sounds like mine!". So I conned him into telling me the s/n, since I still had the warranty card with the s/n on it: he told me. Sure enough, it was my axe.
I was still under the impression it was stolen, so before I said anything else to him about it, I called the cops in the town where it went missing to file a report (which I didn't do at first because it was months before I figured it got jacked, and the police don't exactly have a good track record of finding stolen stuff, IMO). They called the PD where this dude lives...those guys called the dude up and said it was reported as stolen. He was like "Oh shit, I didn't know! I'll just go bring it to him now!".
Come to find out, my axe sat in a venue in the town where the dude lives, which we played once, for over several months. This dude came in one day, after seeing it there over this period of time, and asked the bartender about it. BT said "Its been here for months, nobody has come to look for it. I'll sell it to you for $150 just to get it out of here". So he grabbed it...and held onto it for almost 2 years, as he is a lefty guitar player and it wasn't going to do him any good...he figured he'd get rid of it eventually.
He saw me play a few times, and admired my playing, so he figured he'd offer it to me first. He didn't even know he was offering me my own guitar! So, he brought it back to me last night. It's obviously been fondled (missing a lockdown screw for the nut, the DiMarzio click-lock strap is missing the main part of it, a screw in the pickguard is missing), but I got it back. My 1991 Ibanez RG750BK, which I brought with me as a backup to a show and got left behind...is back.
Now I'm only irritated as to why it got left behind. The one time we played there, I couldn't get the night off from work. They told me I could play the show but I had to come in when I was done. So literally after we stopped playing, I handed my gear off to my band and went to work 30 miles away. The dude who usually oversaw the equipment when I wasn't able to, who is no longer in the band anymore for reasons like this, tended to get a little off task whenever there was any offer of a party or whatever. I'm sure he was distracted for whatever reason and left it there.
So yeah...theres my story.
A couple of days ago, this guy from another town over hits me up on my myspace and says he has this guitar that he was pretty sure I could do justice for and wanted to trade me a motorcycle for it or something. He described it, and I was like "wtf? That sounds like mine!". So I conned him into telling me the s/n, since I still had the warranty card with the s/n on it: he told me. Sure enough, it was my axe.
I was still under the impression it was stolen, so before I said anything else to him about it, I called the cops in the town where it went missing to file a report (which I didn't do at first because it was months before I figured it got jacked, and the police don't exactly have a good track record of finding stolen stuff, IMO). They called the PD where this dude lives...those guys called the dude up and said it was reported as stolen. He was like "Oh shit, I didn't know! I'll just go bring it to him now!".
Come to find out, my axe sat in a venue in the town where the dude lives, which we played once, for over several months. This dude came in one day, after seeing it there over this period of time, and asked the bartender about it. BT said "Its been here for months, nobody has come to look for it. I'll sell it to you for $150 just to get it out of here". So he grabbed it...and held onto it for almost 2 years, as he is a lefty guitar player and it wasn't going to do him any good...he figured he'd get rid of it eventually.
He saw me play a few times, and admired my playing, so he figured he'd offer it to me first. He didn't even know he was offering me my own guitar! So, he brought it back to me last night. It's obviously been fondled (missing a lockdown screw for the nut, the DiMarzio click-lock strap is missing the main part of it, a screw in the pickguard is missing), but I got it back. My 1991 Ibanez RG750BK, which I brought with me as a backup to a show and got left behind...is back.
Now I'm only irritated as to why it got left behind. The one time we played there, I couldn't get the night off from work. They told me I could play the show but I had to come in when I was done. So literally after we stopped playing, I handed my gear off to my band and went to work 30 miles away. The dude who usually oversaw the equipment when I wasn't able to, who is no longer in the band anymore for reasons like this, tended to get a little off task whenever there was any offer of a party or whatever. I'm sure he was distracted for whatever reason and left it there.
So yeah...theres my story.
