Posted on 02/17/2024 8:06:37 PM PST by Red Badger
As one of the last surviving Beatles shows us, never give up — not even after five decades:
Paul McCartney is "incredibly grateful" after he was reunited with his beloved bass more than 51 years after it vanished and sparked a global search at the Beatle's pleading.
The 1961 Höfner 500/1 bass guitar — bought by McCartney as a teen in Hamburg for a mere $37 before the fame — was stolen off the back of a van transporting the band's equipment on the night of Oct. 10, 1972, in Notting Hill, according to Höfner executives who launched an investigation into the missing instrument.
The instrument was a regular fixture slung around McCartney's neck during the earlier years of the Beatles' tenure:
It was stolen from a transport truck in the early 1970s, unfortunately, and not seen again — not for a very long time, anyway. But music fans and historical sleuths launched the Lost Bass Project last year in a Hail Mary effort to find the instrument .
The detectives actually managed to track down the original thief, who had lived just near where the theft occurred. That thief told the investigators that he "had sold [the guitar] to the landlord of a pub in the Notting Hill area:"
The pub landlord was Ron Guest, the grandfather of Ruaidhri Guest, who passed the bass down to his sons after his death.
It stayed in the family all those years.
Ruaidhri Guest posted a photo of himself with the legendary instrument, proving its historical authenticity:
Former Beatles sound engineer Ian Horne, meanwhile, was overjoyed to learn that the famous bass he'd lost fifty years before was finally found:
"It was stolen on my watch so to help get the bass back today, I'm thrilled. It's a huge weight off my mind."
Mystery solved!
In the 1980s I was playing in a band and we had one gig in NYC and afterwards for some reason we said let’s check out Harlem so we drove all the way up there with 2 guitars and a bass guitar in the back seat and the amps in the trunk.
So we saw some bar off Malcolm X blvd above Central park, and I am not exaggerating in the least when I say this: We got out, made damn sure the doors were locked, walked about 50 feet to the bar, went in, saw that it was crowded, nowhere to sit, then said “Hey lets go somewhere else” walked back to the car, and the guitars and bass in the back seat were gone. Not only that, the thief re-locked the doors. I haven’t been back in that area since. To this day that really pisses me off
When the movie about car theft “Gone in 60 Seconds” first came out, a journalist asked a real life car thief what he thought about the movie.
He said it must be about a really SLOW car thief.............
“had sold [the guitar] to the landlord of a pub in the Notting Hill area:”
The pub landlord was Ron Guest, the grandfather of Ruaidhri Guest, who passed the bass down to his sons after his death.”
Isn’t this called receiving stolen goods?
Yes it is here, I don’t know about the UK........................
Isn’t this called receiving stolen goods?
what about a statute of limitations?
LOL! I believe it.
He said if you can’t steal a car in less than 15 seconds you need to find another line of ‘work’..................
(what about a statute of limitations?)
I think it’s “statue of limitations”
It’s a sculpture of limitations!
A “mere” $37 in 1964 could buy a decent enough used car. He probably had to save up a bit for it.
$37 in 1964 = $369.30 today’s dollars....................
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=37&year1=196401&year2=202401
from the look of the crack on the soundboard i would guess that it has not received the best treatment...
“Yesterday” was really about his stolen guitar. /s
The mother-of-pearl pick guard is missing, also.
Probably because the strings moved to accommodate a right-handed player.
I have a Hofner violin that has a wonderful sound.
See the photos of McCartney upthread.
My first car in 1965 was a ‘51 Buick that my Dad found in the paper, was $95.
Government statistics on monetary inflation are no bueno
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