Found an old listing to my stolen ‘78 Les Paul Custom

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Soundstorm

Soundstorm

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So first off, this was a really sentimental guitar that was stolen from me in 2017 in New Orleans. I’d saved for quite awhile and bought it when I was a teen. It spent 17 years with me, every gig, every album, everywhere I lived. It was like the one constant in my life. So I was pretty devastated when it was stolen (along with an early 70’s Marshall and a ton of my other belongings).

I filed a police report but let’s just say the NOPD isn’t known for their diligence. Meanwhile, I put out a reward on Craigslist and have been checking local listings since it happened, sometimes checking other nearby states’ Craigslist.

Now just last week, I ran a Google and just looked at images of “1978 Gibson Wine Red Les Paul Custom”, scrolled a few pages and bam there she was…in Syracuse NY at Ish Guitars. Now this was an older listing, and the guitar was marked as sold, but I contacted them anyway to see if I could reach out to the seller and offer to buy the guitar back. I told them the story and made clear I just wanted to purchase the guitar back. That’s when they told me it had been sold in 2019 through Reverb to a buyer in France, and that the only way they could contact him was through the direct messaging on the site. The rep got my info and sent me an email later saying he’d reached out to the guy. I checked in with them a few days later and they said they hadn’t heard anything back. And honestly I don’t expect to.

So I’m not sure if I have any options at this point, but I thought maybe putting this info out there could help. Any advice would be appreciated.
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Practical perspective if you want the guitar back I would message the seller. Ask he put it on reverb for a price that’s probably higher than he paid and buy it. It’ll incentivize the buyer to actually want to get it to you and doing it through reverb allows him to ensure he gets paid and you don’t get scammed out of the same guitar twice. I don’t like that solution but if the goal is to get the guitar that’s it. Any other action you can take is expensive, time consuming, and only results in monetary damages. Not the guitar. And it seems like the guitar is the end game. Just my rare lawyer hat coming out here.
 
Gorgeous Norlin wine red. Rare as hell too - mine is a 76. By the late 70’s they were already diluting the red dye to save money hence all of the tomato colored ones from that era.
 
ouch. i had a cherry sun 79 dlx someone before me routed for a full hummer in the bridge. didn’t mind cause those mini hums blew back then!
that era produced some players.
 
glpg80 said:
+1

They know it is stolen now and are an accessory.
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How is ish an accessory for a guitar they sold in 2019 when they found out it was stolen 4 years later?
OP good luck. I hope you get it back.
 
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Thanks all. I'm getting a copy of my police report today. From there I'll try working with the NO and Syracuse PD and see if I can at least find out exactly who my guitar was sold to. If it did indeed go to France, my options are pretty limited, but there's a site they use there that's like the French Craigslist. So I could post an ad about the guitar and see if I get any hits.
 
Id go through every sold listing for 78 customs out of Europe and hopefully match serial numbers.
I also don’t think it’s too much to ask who sold it to Ish and who bought it considering it is stolen. If they don’t tell you who bought it I’d go to reverb and ask. If I had to guess, ish isn’t going to talk to the buyer at all given they sold him a stolen guitar and would rather you just go away.
 
Statute of limitations on theft?
Best of luck OP….hate a thief man!
May the dude that stole this nuts grow together.
 
If you have documentation, including serial, don’t give up hope, even if it’s in France. Find someone who speaks French and contact the authorities there, assuming you can’t work it out with the buyer. Maybe they can help. And maybe going after the seller could help reveal identity at least.
 
Ive never been to Ish guitars.
Ill have to check the place out.
Still exist?
 
Chubbs said:
Id go through every sold listing for 78 customs out of Europe and hopefully match serial numbers.
I also don’t think it’s too much to ask who sold it to Ish and who bought it considering it is stolen. If they don’t tell you who bought it I’d go to reverb and ask. If I had to guess, ish isn’t going to talk to the buyer at all given they sold him a stolen guitar and would rather you just go away.
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Ish won't give up that info due to privacy concerns. Most companies won't. But I should be getting the copy of my police report any day now. I'll use that and my photo evidence and can hopefully get Syracuse PD to make Ish give up the info and I can go from there. There are a couple of sites in France I've been directed to- Guitariste.com and Leboncoin.fr in France that both seem very active. With that being said, I'm still skeptical that it was sold overseas in the first place. I don't want to go down that rabbit hole until I know for sure.
 
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