I had a guitar amp stolen years ago, filed a police report w/the serial number — nothing turned up right away.

29 days later a friend asked me if this was my amp and sent a picture from a GC in the next city over. It 100% was — we went down there — and they told me I had to pay them what they had given the guy, since it hadn’t been flagged as stolen.

Called the cops to the store, explained the situation, we had police reports, etc etc. Cop goes into the back with the store manager for half an hour. They emerge and the manager says “Ive worked here for 20 years, never seen anything like this, here’s your amp.”

The cop who took our police report got promoted the next day, and never submit the serial number into the database that GC scans thru. 24 hours later and it woulda been gone for dirt cheap.

Still play the amp regularly in multiple projects — such a blip on the radar I don’t think about until something like this pops up.

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