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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 15680
Location: SoCal | Some of you may recall that a buddy of mine found and bought an Ovation Patriot that was stolen out of his car about 27 years ago. He wrote the following for a local paper and anybody else who was interested. It's a good story.....
eBay Customer Recovers Guitar Stolen 27 Years Ago
It was in the spring of 1978. I had moved from my boyhood home in New York to Fort Lauderdale the previous October, seeking the eternal warmth of the Florida sun.
I was a twenty-year-old kid with nothing to my name but an old, beat-up Yamaha guitar turned upside-down and strung backwards because I play left-handed. But I was a gospel singer / songwriter and some folks felt I deserved to be heard.
One of them was the youth pastor at the Assembly of God Church in Oakland Park, a section of Ft. Lauderdale. He wanted to help me get established as a church performer in the region. So he got on the phone to some of his old Bible college buddies who were now pastors, and started setting up bookings for me.
One booking was at an Assembly of God church in Bradenton, Florida, next to Sarasota. The church was having a three-day youth conference and I was invited to perform for about 45 minutes each day for the entire event. The host church provided me with a round-trip bus ticket from Fort Lauderdale, a place to stay with a very hospitable church family, and a nice honorarium for my services.
On the third day of my stay, in the early afternoon, after I had finished my last performance, I was given the church van to use, just so that I would not be stranded for the rest of the day. So, I just began to drive toward the closest business area I could find. I ended up on Main Street in Sarasota. There, I found a small shopping center with a modest music store that sold a few guitars. I walked in just to see what was hanging from the walls and there, amid all the mediocre, economy-grade plain-Janes, was an Ovation Patriot. It was (and still is) a top-of-the-line premium guitar made by the legendary manufacturer in New Hartford Connecticut and made famous by such 1960’s and ’70 megastars as Glen Campbell, Paul McCartney, Jim Croche, David Gates, David Cassidy, Bobby Goldsboro, the Dooby Brothers, and just about everyone who played a guitar in front of an audience or a television camera, including all of my personal heroes and musical influences. These guitars are famous for their distinctive beauty, tonal quality and modern, fiberglass rounded backs.
An Ovation Patriot is a relatively rare instrument. Only 1776 of these beauties were made to commemorate America’s bi-centennial in 1976. The rich, dark, antique-looking Connecticut Nutmeg finish was a first for Ovation. The guitar also featured a special drum and old glory stencil on the lower bout of the guitar that was hand colored individually on each instrument by artisans working at the factory.
With the permission of the store clerk, I removed the Patriot from its place on the wall with the greatest of care and began to strum and feel its buttery-smooth action. It was breathtakingly beautiful and its sound was unmatched by anything I had ever set on my knee, or had ever heard on anyone else’s.
It was also supremely expensive. This model listed for around $1,000; a great deal of money in the 1970’s and way more than most people were willing to pay for a guitar; certainly far more than I could ever dream of spending. This guitar was brand new. Its huge price tag was the reason it had hung in this little shop for nearly two years.
With silent resignation, I gingerly placed the Patriot back on the wall hanger and quietly slipped out of the store and back into my borrowed church van.
I sat at supper that evening with the kind family whose hospitality sustained me those three days in Sarasota. They were a nice couple of apparently modest means and generous hearts. They were schoolteachers. Their home was clean and well kept, but modest. They had asked me what I did that day after I had finished singing. I told them about my happening upon this little music store and the treasure I found hanging inside. The guitar was so astronomically expensive that I didn’t feel there was any harm in telling them about it. This family didn’t seem to have much, and to me, it was like telling them about an expensive sports car or some other interesting extravagance I might have spied that afternoon. It was just conversation over dinner.
The next day, while taking me to catch my bus home to Fort Lauderdale, the couple swung by the music store and asked me to show them the guitar. Then….they bought in for me. Oh my Gosh! It was unbelievable. I told them that this was not the reason I mentioned the guitar at supper the night before. They just smiled and said, “We know…we just wanted to do something to encourage you in your music ministry.” I was speechless.
They didn’t make Ovation Patriots in a left-handed version, so when I got back to Fort Lauderdale, I found a guitar luthier that came highly recommended. He was said to work on guitars from the band Lynyrd Skynyrd. I had this man perform a left-handed conversion on my Patriot that looked as if it came from the factory that way.
I played that guitar in many performances over the next year and wrote some of my best songs on it. One night, in 1979, after spending many hours jamming with a new friend in Miami, I came home to my apartment in Fort Lauderdale. It was very late, and I was tired, and I was twenty-one years old, and I was careless. I left my guitar and a small PA system and some microphones in my car, and just went to bed. During the night, it all disappeared, including my Patriot. I was devastated.
We had a policeman in our congregation and he filled out a police report for me a couple of days later. He told me that the guitar was probably shuttled out of the state by now and sold. In all likelihood, I would never see it again. He was right…..for about 27 years.
On September 13, 2005, my friend from Miami, the one that I had been jamming with the night of the theft, sent me an email containing an eBay auction Item number: 7350148764. It was a left-handed Ovation Patriot. What’s more, a seller in Fort Lauderdale was offering it! The inscription my friend sent in his email was, “Do ya think this could be…?”
After viewing the many high-resolution photos the seller had meticulously placed on the auction, I had no doubt that it was my lost Patriot. One photo was of inside the sound hole, where the manufacturer’s label sits. On the label it showed the model number, 1776 (denoting a Patriot) and the serial number 1301 (numbered in sequence of manufacture from 1 to 1776). The serial number seemed familiar but by this time, everything about the guitar did, so I knew I’d better not put much stock in my ability to remember the serial number after 27 years.
I have been playing Ovation acoustic guitars almost exclusively for the past 30 years, and am acquainted with the good guys in the factory’s service department in Connecticut. So, I contacted one of the main guys there and asked him for a favor. I asked him to pull the lifetime warrantee registration card for model 1776, serial number 1301. He asked me to hold for a moment. In a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, he was back, and read to me the name of the original purchaser. It was mine.
I asked him to photocopy the card and fax it to me. I then scanned it into a PDF file and emailed it to the seller. I had already been in touch with the seller from the moment I first saw the auction and was reasonably sure the guitar was mine. Remember, there were no lefty Patriots made. The chances of a lefty Patriot being in Fort Lauderdale and not being the one I lost were even slimmer than my ever finding mine again. There were also some other minor modifications I made to the guitar while I owned it that I recognized; details that were not touched upon in the extensive and candid item description the seller had placed on the auction.
In the item description, the seller expressed uncertainty about whether the lefty conversion was done at the factory or by an expert luthier locally. I was able to fill him in on every detail and told him the whole story. Naturally, he emphatically stated that he was not the one who had stolen the guitar from me and explained that he purchased it from a local dealer about ten years after the date that I lost it, and paid about $700. I assured him that I did not believe I was dealing with the thief who had taken my prize. He explained that he believed my story (how could he not with all the details It old him about that only I would know) and that he’d really like to see it get back to me. So, he offered to sell it back to me for $400 and he would pay the shipping, which was about $50 according to his auction. With the right person bidding, this guitar would have fetched a respectable sum; much more than the $400 (less shipping) he would pocket from me. I accepted his generous offer.
A week or so later, my long-lost Ovation Patriot was back in my arms again. It was as wonderful as I remembered; the classic beauty, a rich, well-balanced, robust sound, and the buttery-smooth playability that is characteristic of these fine instruments.
As you can imagine, the most significant thing about this guitar is that it was a gift of encouragement for my music ministry from people I hardly knew. They had opened their home to me, a stranger, and showered me with their Christian hospitality. Then, they gave an opulent, sacrificial gift that buoyed my heart through many a difficult time as a struggling musical artist and minister in song.
In the years that followed, even until now, I have been the grateful recipient of several fine guitars from generous folks who have appreciated the music I make, although I am not exactly sure why. I am grateful and very humbled by the support friends (and even strangers) have shown over the years. These gifts of encouragement are just as treasured as the first one, that old Patriot, absent these 27 long years. It took me a while to understand that receiving guitars as gifts towards my ministry was really quite unusual. After 30 years of music ministry, it seems this has been a unique ornament to my particular journey. That’s why it is only fitting that this ol’ guitar should take its place among the rest.
Clark Byron
Kansas City, MO
Cbyron@kc.rr.com
www.clarkbyron.com | |
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Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | I remember the thread when this first came up.
What a great story and an even better ending!
Like they say, truth is often stranger than fiction. | |
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Joined:
March 2005
Posts: 1421
Location: Orange County, California | Why Don't we invite him to join the OFC? If nothing else he should be able to come up with an interesting screen name.... | |
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Joined:
October 2005
Posts: 400
Location: North Texas | Amazing story! Congrats on your re-aquisition. I think I remember seeing that git-fiddle on ebay. I did not dwell on it as I write, and play right handed, even though I throw, box, and bowl, etc. lefty. I'm not really sure which handed I am because I perform different tasks with each hand. Many tasks like tossing frisbees, bowling, batting, dart throwing, and others, I use either hand. Playing a reversed guitar, however, would be impossible for me to do. There is no advantage to playing left handed, other than for a natural southpaw. Sports has those advantages. Tennis, handball, etc. are easier for ambihanders. I used to play ping pong with two paddles, when I could get away with it. Maybe, if Mel Bay had been a lefty I'd be playing that way too. Your guitar story would make a great TV movie. Russel Crowe could use the work, those court costs can be brutal. Wonderful story Clark.
Thanks Moody, for sharing your friends' good fortune. Buck | |
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Joined:
June 2002
Posts: 863
Location: Central Florida | How fortuitous that Clark's friend from Miami was on the ball and alerted him to it the way he did... :D | |
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Joined:
May 2002
Posts: 3005
Location: Las Cruces, NM | GREAT STORY from many angles!!! | |
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Joined:
December 2004
Posts: 2150
Location: Orlando, FL | I remember the original thread. It's great to get such a detailed account. Great story! | |
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Joined:
May 2005
Posts: 327
Location: Evansville,IN | Originally posted by Buckaroo:
I think I remember seeing that git-fiddle on ebay.
Tennis, handball, etc. are easier for ambihanders. Haven't heard anyone use that expression to describe a guitar,except my dad, he always has called guitars "git-fiddles".
I know what you mean. Makes life much simpler.
Wonderful story. It's nice to think sometimes they do have happy endings. :) | |
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Joined:
August 2002
Posts: 8307
Location: Tennessee | I once was lost, but now I'm found. Something special is sure to come out of this.
I'm not sure where, but I think I've seen his sideman someplace ...
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Joined:
April 2004
Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | GrilledCheese......the title of my latest CD is "GITFIDDLE BLUES" :cool: | |
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Recovered Patriot