You might think that an item as large and conspicuous as a guitar would be difficult to lose track of, but, as this gallery will prove, that’s simply not the case.
Touring musicians will tell you: things go missing on the road. One moment a guitar is there, the next it’s not. Sometimes there’s an innocent explanation. When you own and tour with dozens of guitars, the idea of one getting accidentally misplaced is not all that hard to believe.
But sometimes there’s something more nefarious afoot — many guitars are highly valuable and let’s face it, not everyone in the music business has a squeaky clean reputation for honesty.
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They’ll also tell you it’s impossible to replace certain prized instruments. When Peter Frampton finally recovered his long-lost Les Paul Custom guitar, some 30 years after it was presumed lost in a plane crash, there was no mistaking it.
“Without even looking, I could just feel it was mine,” he wrote in his autobiography Do You Feel Like I Do?: A Memoir. “I finally got the cover off and it was just like putting on an old pair of extremely comfy shoes. ‘Yes, it’s mine.’ And there she was! Back home!”
Frampton is one of the fortunate ones. There are plenty of guitars that have gone missing and stayed missing. In the gallery below, we’re taking a look at 19 Rock Guitars That Were Stolen or Lost (and Sometimes Found).
19 Rock Guitars That Were Stolen or Lost (and Sometimes Found)
Some of these are still out there somewhere.
Gallery Credit: Allison Rapp
