Tucson musician Peter McLaughlin is offering a reward with no questions asked for the return of his vintage 1937 Martin D-18 guitar, which was stolen from his car parked downtown last Friday.
McLaughlin, the 1988 National Flatpicking Champion, and his friends and fans around the country have launched a vigorous social media campaign to retrieve the instrument.
He also posted a notice on Craigslist, which led to a tip Monday from a man identifying himself as a Kentucky truck driver who said he had bought the guitar from a kid on East Speedway last weekend. The tip turned out to be a scam, McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin, who spent years touring with California bluegrass singer Laurie Lewis in the 1990s, bought the Martin from Rainbow Guitars 20 years ago.
“I have a thing for old Martin guitars,” the 59-year-old father of three said Tuesday, recalling how he bonded with the instrument the moment Rainbow Guitars owner Harvey Moltz handed it to him. “I strummed on it and it just spoke to me. The tone, the volume, the projection.”
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In the 20 years since, McLaughlin has never taken the Martin out of his house. But last Friday, he decided to bring it along to Lake Havasu, where he and his Sonoran Dogs Bluegrass Band were playing in the Bluegrass on the Beach festival.
“I don’t usually travel with two guitars, but the guitar I usually play I had broken a couple strings recently. I just wanted to be prepared in case I broke a string on stage,” said McLaughlin, a Tucson city planner who had parked his packed car across the street from his city office on North Stone Avenue.
“I was literally running from my car to the office and back,” he said. “I ran out and (the guitar) had disappeared. I literally just at that moment had a meltdown. Anybody who saw me, I was probably a lunatic. I was initially in disbelief that it was gone out of my sight and out of my possession.”
Tucson Police Detective Bobby Garcia said instrument thefts from cars in Tucson are not common, but not unheard of.
“A guitar is pretty rare. I’ve gotten reports of a saxophone stolen and a trumpet, but most of those people leave them in plain view,” he said.
Garcia said his best leads in thefts like this come from pawn shops that are required by law to register items they buy into a database that police use to search for serial numbers and other identifiers.
If McLaughlin’s guitar pops up, “I’d be happier than heck to get it back to him,” Garcia said.
Martin said he could not place a dollar value on his Martin D-18.
“I loved that guitar. It had a sound that was unequal to any guitar I’ve ever owned or played,” he said.
