Has anyone ever had their stuff stolen
 

I have and it's a horrible feeling. Summer of 2006 during a 4 day weekend our house was burglarized to the max. Aside from our personal contents and I mean everything, they found my bass collection tucked away.
71 P bass
73 J bass
94 EB MM Sting
98 Warwick thumb

Insurance paid for our entire loss including my bass collection. To my surprise my local police department that handled our case and the detective overlooking starting finding my basses through a network that pawn shops use to report all incoming property as "pawned". I was able to buy my stuff back for the said pawn ticket on each bass at different stores around the greater area. Pawn shops work by the book as long as you furnish a picture ID, they will pawn anything. The store has every right to ask for the pawn tickets paid in full in my case to which I did in a heartbeat with my money I got from my insurance loss. All but my 73 jazz ever made it back home. I think about it all the time and where it can be!


Note the dark shade of grain at upper horn, damn:atoz:

btw-those tickets did not exceed over 250.00 on the high and 175.00 on the low side.

Yepp. Jusy a M.I.Korea schecter 7 string. Not attached, but it was my only electric that I occasionally used. Disappeared along with a buddy's bass and another guy's amp from my guitarist's house at the time. I call foul play on the guitarist, and though this was 5+ months ago I'm going in with the guy who owned the bass on Monday to file a police report along with a claim in small claims court.

Having your gear jacked is the worst. I'm glad you got all yours back though!
Except that J... :(

Before I became a bassist I was living in VA. Beach and my apartment and my storage rental space was broken into the same week. I moved to PA. shortly afterward and I was able to fit everything I owned in the back of a Chevy Spectrum.

The storage place supposedly had security and insurance. When I told them about the break-in they said, "Yeah, we have cameras but there wasn't a tape in a VCR."

My EBMM Sterling was stolen en route to its new buyer. USPS never payed the insurance.

I lost a Rickenbacker 4001 that I'd customized, and a Ken Warmoth guitar prototype from back when he was just starting up in Puyallup. They were stolen when they were in the custody of my friend while I was serving in the Navy. Neither one is replaceable.

Bums me out thinking about it.

In '04 or '05 I had a guitar and a bass stolen, an Epiphone SG and a Schecter Diamond 4, as well as my laptop. I was so shaken up that my roommate had to call the police. Nothing ever came of it, they were long gone. I was lucky they didn't take my acoustic guitar, a '73 Gibson, because it is almost irreplaceable. The only reason I can think of that they didn't take it is because the others were in gig bags that could be carried on the shoulder. Now I keep renters insurance in case it ever happens again, but the thought of losing so much in one fell swoop again makes me sick.

The police should have made the pawnshops turn over the "pawned" property based on your police report. It's inconceivable you had to pay pawn tickets on stuff that was stollen from you!

I was surprised, actually - I was burgled a couple of months ago. They took my flatmate's laptop but they didn't touch any of my guitars or basses. I guess the difference in London is that most people don't own a car, so they're looking for stuff they can tuck under an arm and run off with. A guitar is just going to slow you down if you can't throw it into a getaway car. And if you don't know which ones are valuable and which ones are cheap, it's not really worth that risk.

The only time I had anything stolen was when in the mid 1980s. I left a 1978 Fender Jazz and a 1972 SVT head and cab at my drummer's house because our band had broken up and I was moving. When I when to pick them up, he told me that he didn't have them because he had traded them for an Alembic bass. He eventually paid me for them but I would have rather had my gear.

Doesn't that basically encourage pawn shops to take stolen goods?

Is that really the legal situation in the USA - they're allowed to re-sell stolen goods?

Pawn shops aren't allowed to knowingly re-sell stolen goods. I did some consulting work with a pawn shop in Maryland. There is something very fishy about that.

no. a pawn shop does not know your items are stolen unless it has been reported with serials with a police report beforehand. When you pawn something you NEED ID so the pawn shop is out of the liability.

If that item was reported stolen, you go to the pawn shop, show your police report, your ID, they will not just "hand it over". You must pay what the pawn shop paid out to take it. That is what the insurance is for.

One of my units was stolen but I had pictures of the unit including the plate with the serial. The insurance paid me, I went and paid the pawnshop, they gave me my item, and the person who pawned it was in court 2 weeks later and was arrested from stealing my property as well as a couple others.
IN FACT, the insurance company paid me more than I had to pay out to get it back, and I was required to pay the insurance company back the difference.

Musical items stolen from me:
Pre CBS Fender Precision
1975 Rickenbacker 4001
1983 Fender Precision
Peterson strobe tuner
Trumpet
Bass Rockman

my beautiful '66 Jazz in 1979 or so. Never saw it again. :-(

in the mid '90s...

I had just Frankenbassed a late '60s Precision with a new maple neck...
bought a brand spankin new SVTIII (non pro)...
had a Acoustic 150b 2x15

All were stolen from the back of my van

Interesting comments everyone. Thanks! I myself have never utilized pawn service to borrow money. It's quick money for someone to get cash providing a finger print and ID. You agree to repaying loan in a certain amount of days. These scumbags have no intent to return. Lien is placed, item made available and sold for major profit. Pawn shops never lose as long as they follow procedures.

Very sad loss, that's my birth year!

I read somewhere that James Jamerson died a few days after losing his p bass to a apartment burglary in south central Los Angeles. Health issues and losing your prized collector, forget 'bout it. CRIME SUCKS!

I said it before in a previous thread, but wouldnt it be cool if there were a chip or small GPS device we could install in our bass in case something like this happens. Just like the Find My iPhone app.

many years ago (mid 80's), a friend of mine had his P bass stolen.

A couple weeks later he was visiting the people downstairs in the duplex he was living in. One of those characters was playing a recently refinished P bass. Yep, it was his. He couldn't believe anybody would think he wouldn't recognize his bass, even after refinish. He called the police on his neighbors, got his bass back and moved out. His neighbor claimed he'd bought it from someone who was moving out of state, but had no receipt. Police didn't prosecute. That's why my friend moved.