Richie Sambora Reunited With His Guitar More Than Four Decades After It Was Stolen

Richie Sambora’s guitar found its way back to him. More than four decades after his beloved guitar was stolen, Sambora tracked the instrument down to a Paris shop.

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The guitar, Sambora said, still has its custom-made ebony fretboard and his signature stars.

“It was f**king trippy as s**t,” Sambora told People. “I put it on, I started to play it. It seemed like it was untouched. It’s almost in perfect shape.”

Sambora’s history with the guitar dates back to when he was a teenager. When he was just 16, Sambora bought the 1976 Gibson Explorer after watching Eric Clapton play on the same model.

The instrument became his go-to, and Sambora even played it on Bon Jovi‘s first two records.

“I said to myself, ‘This is the guitar that I can make talk.’ When I wanted to be a badass, that’s what I took out,” he said. “It easily was the best guitar I owned, and the specs were mine. So basically it was the first Richie Sambora custom model.”

How Richie Sambora Was Reunited With His Beloved Guitar

Then, when he was gearing up for Bon Jovi’s1985 tour, someone stole the guitar, along with all the band’s other equipment, out of a New Jersey warehouse.

“The record company had to lend us money to buy new equipment and we just went and did it,” Sambora said of the tour. “So obviously what happened in my career happened in my career, it was fantastic. 

Sambora first had the guitar back in his sights 10 years ago, when a shop called to let him know that they’d just sold it. The musician reached out to the buyer and offered double for the instrument. He never heard back, so he hired a private detective to track it down.

The detective did just that, locating the instrument at Matt’s Guitar Shop in Paris. When the shop’s owner learned that the guitar had been stolen, he worked hard to get it back to Sambora.

“He sent me a picture and I go, ‘Get the f**k out of here. You got it,’” Sambora recalls. “He goes, ‘I knew it was yours. I bought it immediately for you.’ So that was really, really cool of him.”

Photo by Scott Dudelson/Getty Images