In the 1990s, a British guitar store had 50 of its Steinberger basses stolen, with Pink Floyd collaborator Guy Pratt losing one of his prized four-strings during this time. The thief, it turns out, used the guitar’s design against it.
Session ace Pratt, who has also worked with Gary Moore, Michael Jackson, and Whitesnake, has a podcast, the Rockonteurs, with Spandau Ballet guitarist Gary Kemp. On it, Pratt explained how his bass was swept up in the series of thefts that had a London guitar store perplexed.
“There was a period in the early ‘90s when there were lots and lots of headless basses,” he says in reference to the emergence of the Steinberger bass.
“I had this bass, and I gave it to the Bass Center [in London, England] to sell. They called me up one day and said, ‘Really sorry, Guy, but someone's nicked your bass.’ And it turns out they'd had a raft of thefts of headless basses.
“Eventually, this guy got caught. They went round to his place, and he's got a flat full of headless basses for the simple reason he'd figured out a way he could nick them,” he develops.
“Because they don't have a head, if you had a big carrier bag, you could put the body in the bag and have the neck go up your arm. So he stole about 50 basses.”
Decades later, Pratt is still hunting for his lost Steinberger L2, which bears the serial number 712. YouTube Danny Sapko, who has a reputation for outing the music industry's bad eggs, has appealed for anyone with information about the bass to step forward.
Stolen guitar stories are etched into the very fabric of the industry. Heart’s Nancy Wilson lost her baritone Telecaster last year after someone walked onto their stage and stole it in the cold light of day. Back in February, it was reported that police were searching for a $15,000 vintage Martin D-28 that was stolen from a Maryland music store, which left it feeling “violated.”
