Stolen Guitar. Anyone Ever Get One Back?

[MrDB]

Originally Posted by rllink

Reported it to Martin? What was Martin going to do about it? The wheels of justice turn slowly and sadly recover stolen property sits in an evidence vault for a long time while the case gets adjudicated. Then the authorities don't deliver it back to the owner, they don't have the resources to go out on delivery returning property. They send a notice of release for the owner to pick it up. If the owner moves or doesn't get the notice to release, or just doesn't get around to picking it up, after a period of time it is considered abandoned property and gets sold or destroyed. Like most things, it is not a perfect system and a lot of people don't know how it works.

Reporting it to Martin would at least help getting it back in the event someone brought it to a dealer for some type of service or warranty work.

[brad4d8]

Not me, but a local store. They were broken into and several fairly high end electric guitars were stolen. A few months later, the thieves, local college students, took them to a GC near their home on Long Island and GC checked the serial numbers and reported them. Don't know how long it took to go through recovery process, but they did get them back eventually.

[blindboyjimi]

Yes, I had a high-end luthier guitar returned to me. I set a Google search and a years later it popped up in a pawn shop 1500 miles from me. That luthier has made only a few hundred guitars, especially of certain woods and specific wood grain, so it was much easier to find than a Martin D-28 which has to be one of a million. I did not press charges so it was returned from their local Police to my local Police department and I picked it up there.

[Jimi2]

My first real electric was a black Gibson SG, and it was stolen out of my car with some other things many years ago. I called around to local music stores and pawn shops, and someone had sold it to one (a music store). The store gave it back to me without any hassle, and I still have it.

[RP]

I've never had a guitar, bicycle or car stolen. I guess I've led a charmed life...

[stephenT]

Yes.

I had a guitar repair shop in FL, Someone threw the concrete block I used to prop the door open during business hrs though the front window and grabbed my '70s Fender Tele Custom.

I learned a lesson about leaving objects of your destruction laying around.

A couple months later it appeared in a well know music store in Tampa and someone let me know. Drove to the store and I got it back that day. They must have known something was screwy. I don't recall what ownership proof I had but I'd filed a police report at the time of the theft.

.

[gfspencer]

In 1968 on the last day of class a fraternity brother stole my Martin D-21. He is a prominent phycologist now and posts on the internet. I often mention my D-21. He has never had the guts to answer me.

[Br1ck]

Never had one stolen, but I came back from helping my daughter move out of her dorm for the summer. I spent ten times more than normal and my bank put a possible fraud freeze on it. Had enough cash for gas, hit a Taco Bell for food and went home. Left my wallet on the passenger seat. Awoken by police at 6AM, my window was smashed and wallet gone. By 7AM a utility worker found my wallet in a gutter minus the $3 cash and the credit card that was still frozen.

The thieves were caught in the next town with the goods from half a dozen smash and grabs. I was told they tried to use my CC for gas. Eight months later I got a restitution check to cover the damage, and I went to the PD and got my now long cancelled credit card. Told them it was for the moral victory. The $3 was never seen again. I did not have a banjo in the back seat. One wonders....

[mattwood]

I have a buddy that had his Alvarez Yairi stolen from the church he worked in. Several months later he was perusing a pawn shop in that area and found it hanging on the wall. Called police and eventually got it back.

[RJVB]

Originally Posted by Br1ck

I did not have a banjo in the back seat. One wonders....

... how many the thieves would have offloaded there, as common wisdom would have it?

[Elrathia]

I had three Les Pauls, a strat and a couple of amps taken from my home in Houston. Found the Lester’s on eBay (pawn shop) and was eventually able to get them back.

[Pickcity]

I had one returned to me by the one who attempted to steal it during a break at one of my shows. The stage was on the same wall as the front door, and on the opposite side of the stage was a side door people would come and go through. I was walking back from the restroom when I saw this little scoundrel stepping off the side of the stage with my Gibson L-130 in hand. He was making his way to that side door when I caught up to him. I grabbed his arm and turned him straight into a good, hard cupped right hand to the ear and he was only too happy to give it back. He went down hard and I was lucky to get a hand on the guitar before it fell to the floor.

I almost felt bad afterwards…Almost. I mean he dropped like a sack of potatoes.

I did not press charges. I am fairly certain he learned something of a lesson that night. He had a buddy outside who came in to help him up and hold him up to walk him out of there. When he appeared I put some fear into that little twerp as well, but I let him go without the ear drum treatment.

In all my years of playing in bars and dives, this was the only physical altercation I ever had during one of my shows. I’m proud of that. It’s pretty incredible, when I think about it.

[Mycroft]

Several instances, mine or one that I know of...

A friend got his Webber OM back about a year after it was stolen from his car. ( a lesson here, folks. If you are going to stash something out of sight in your car, don't do it at the place that you are parking your car, in case someone is watching. Do it well before you get there.) David Webber had already built and delivered him a replacement, so he got to choose between them and sold the leftover to another friend.

A friend who use to own a guitar store had 4 guitars stolen in a smash and grab late one night. He got them back when the thief tried to flog them at a pawn shop down in Portland.

And my own instance, when I could have gotten a stolen guitar back, but chose not to. I had a Martin 000-28 Eric Clapton, number 15 in the run, stolen when hanging in my friend's store on consignment. (Walked out in a guitar case, leaving a cheapo hanging in it's place while the store owner was on the phone.

Around two years later, one evening I was watching a movie while sipping some wine, while perusing the offerings of a noted east coast purveyor of fine internet guitar pornography, when I came across a listing for my old 000-28EC. Right down to the comment about it being #15 in the run, so among the first guitars sent to dealers after the model introduction at NAMM, and the fact that someone (me) had replaced the nut and saddle with fossilized ivory. (I kept the FI bridge pins)

I had composed an email to the store, when I came to my senses and decided to wait and consult my friend. His take was that, while I could get the guitar back, it was in the store to be sold and I had already been compensated by his insurance, plus the fact that the guitar had changed hands who knows how many times between the Great Pacific Northwest and the environs of New York, that the store over there had bought the guitar in good faith and would be left holding the bag if they had to give it up. Whoever they had bought it from probably also had no idea that it was stolen either. Unwinding everything was going to be a RUFC.

So I decided it best to let a snoozing pooch lie.

[Big Band Guitar]

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

A friend had a thief break into the home while they were sleeping and he made off with a guitar(s). The police got it back fairly soon but didn't get the thief along with it. They wanted him to drop the charges and then they'd give it back; otherwise it was "evidence". He refused to do this, things drug on, and he finally replaced his instrument. Things drug on further, years, and recently he told me he had it back. They must have finally caught the guy or maybe a time limit expired. It was an Eastman archtop, serial number 1, as I recall. He posts here from time to time and may be able to give you the full and correct story.

That is correct. I had to wait until the statutes of limitations ran out (7 years)

[rllink]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

Several instances, mine or one that I know of...

A friend got his Webber OM back about a year after it was stolen from his car. ( a lesson here, folks. If you are going to stash something out of sight in your car, don't do it at the place that you are parking your car, in case someone is watching. Do it well before you get there.) David Webber had already built and delivered him a replacement, so he got to choose between them and sold the leftover to another friend.

A friend who use to own a guitar store had 4 guitars stolen in a smash and grab late one night. He got them back when the thief tried to flog them at a pawn shop down in Portland.

And my own instance, when I could have gotten a stolen guitar back, but chose not to. I had a Martin 000-28 Eric Clapton, number 15 in the run, stolen when hanging in my friend's store on consignment. (Walked out in a guitar case, leaving a cheapo hanging in it's place while the store owner was on the phone.

Around two years later, one evening I was watching a movie while sipping some wine, while perusing the offerings of a noted east coast purveyor of fine internet guitar pornography, when I came across a listing for my old 000-28EC. Right down to the comment about it being #15 in the run, so among the first guitars sent to dealers after the model introduction at NAMM, and the fact that someone (me) had replaced the nut and saddle with fossilized ivory. (I kept the FI bridge pins)

I had composed an email to the store, when I came to my senses and decided to wait and consult my friend. His take was that, while I could get the guitar back, it was in the store to be sold and I had already been compensated by his insurance, plus the fact that the guitar had changed hands who knows how many times between the Great Pacific Northwest and the environs of New York, that the store over there had bought the guitar in good faith and would be left holding the bag if they had to give it up. Whoever they had bought it from probably also had no idea that it was stolen either. Unwinding everything was going to be a RUFC.

So I decided it best to let a snoozing pooch lie.

If you file an insurance claim on it and you accept payment from them, it isn't your guitar anymore, it belongs to the insurance company. You can however sometimes buy it back from them if it is recovered.