The place to discuss, post photos, video, and audio of the G&L products (US instruments, stomp boxes, etc.) produced after 1991, including the amps & gear we use with them.
anybody do anything extra smart or irrational to guard you guitars from thieves when you are away from home? obviously no one leaves their front door wide open and advertises that there is a sweet and valuable guitar in the house for the taken but wondering if anyone is doing something clever or amusing.. I had a nervous twinge a few days ago when I decided to start leaving my number one ASAT on a stand in the living room. I usually leave it on a wall hanger in the basement bedroom and it seemed safer there but my wife and I are sleeping in the basement bedroom all the time now (better climate controlled) and she finally saw that it made more sense for me to leave a little practice amp and guitar in the living room so I can play while she is headed to sleep. I live in a safe neighborhood but now feel that my guitar is more "exposed" now that it is in room closest to the front door.
when I went on my honeymoon last year, I stashed my number one ASAT in the back of the closet. But then I was concerned that a would be burglar would wonder why there was an empty guitar wall hanger on the wall (yes, I am probably giving a burglar too much credit) so I dug up an old, low end (pun intended) bass guitar from the closet and put it on the wall hanger to throw the smart burglar off.
Paranoid? maybe, considering I have dogs.. but honestly, if my house was burglarized, my number one ASAT is the only thing I would really miss. (I have an office where most of my "identity" records are stored) I am sure my wife would roll her eyes at that statement but maybe not, I once half-jokingly told her that I wanted to be buried with this guitar.
I once had all my gear insured, but the cost of the insurance was about the same as buying a new guitar every year. Now I just live in fear that someone is going to break in and steal all my stuff at once.
I keep all my stuff out of sight from windows etc which burglars would look through to see if there's anything valuable. If I'm going away for a few days I chain the locked cases together through the handles, not fool-proof but it would be an inconvenience . Fortunately for me I don't have a big screen TV, a nice car in the driveway or any other signs that there would be stuff of value inside the house. The only big ticket items in here are my guitars.
This has always been a big concern for me. Guitars in Minnesota are covered under homeowners insurance for replacement value. They do not require a rider like guns or jewelry. Homeowners do have a limit on the value of contents. We do have an alarm system and that is hooked into the phone system. The first thing a professional will do is cut the phone line if is exposed and most are. I left my phone line in place and tied in an underground line so that they will cut the visible cable. So, the alarm will still work. Usually the robbers work quickly and are not bothered by the alarm system. They are in and out in 5 minutes and are gone before the police arrive. Most are looking for money and jewelry or item that can be turned easily. They would not have time to load all the guitars but could do a lot of damage before leaving. Security is always a concern. Maybe that is why I like to be home!!!! Darwin
I had nearly all my gear stolen in 1996. My Fender strat, my Ovation acoustic and a Peavey amp. Thankfully they were all covered by home contents insurance and I ended up getting a better strat and amp (Fender Blues Jnr) out of it. It was a horrible feeling though. The burglars laid everything of value out on the floor and only took the high value stuff. They turned their noses up at my MIJ strat copy and left it behind. It was a pro job. No prints left on anything. Losing my wife's wedding jewellery that was handed down through generations probably hurt the most.
Anyway, now that I've got a few guitars and amps I leave a 'hack' guitar and amp around the house to play on a whim, and to act as decoys when we go away. The guitar is a Tribby ASAT (not to put Tribbies down at all - it plays great) and the amp is a little Roland Cube. The guitar and amp were not particularly expensive, nor do they have any sentimental value and would be easily replaced. The gear I REALLY care about goes under the house or in a ceiling cavity.
pico peachy wrote:obviously no one leaves their front door wide open and advertises that there is a sweet and valuable guitar in the house for the taken
You may be surprised at how many of us do unwittingly advertise the gear we have available and leave clues as to where it can be gotten …
Going back a few years our band had a website … and on that website we had bio pages … and on the bio pages we each had photos … and in those photos were shots of my musical gear and my video gear and my editing workstation. Also on that website was a list of our upcoming gigs. (You can probably guess where this is heading)
When we came back from an extended weekend trip to a few country gigs we walked into a house that had been trashed and of course all the video gear was gone. Fortunately most of my decent musical gear had been with us on the trip but a good few guitars that had been ledt at home were also gone. Initially we thought it had been just our bad luck but we then heard that there was evidence of an attempted break in at our drummers place. The difference between the drummer and I and the rest of the band was that we were listed in the phone book and the others had unlisted numbers. The penny dropped … the website disappeared forever … and while I love to check out the guitar porn and would love to share in return, I had to promise that I wouldn’t post pics or lists of our stuff on the web again, and remembering how shook up my wife was I'll continue to honour that promise.
A word of caution out of this though. Things may be different in the USA and elsewhere, but while most standarf insurance policies here in AUS will cover a guitar or two without them being itemised, they will have a cap on the amount they will pay out on "collections" unless the collections are fully itemised and valued. However, in most cases if you have more guitars (or anything else for that matter) than an average “reasonable” person would have the insurance companies will deem that they constitutes a collection and will not pay out un less they were properly declared as a collection.
"anybody do anything extra smart or irrational to guard you guitars from thieves when you are away from home?"
I'm OK...your OK. What I do when I leave is lock the door, take three steps out, count all the squares in the foyer floor, hop up and down twice, spin around three times (checking to make sure the door really is locked) between each revolution, and fifteen minutes later I call home just in case that particular burglar is stupid enough to answer the phone, in which case I can turn the car around and possibly get there fast enough to catch him before he leaves.
But seriously, having insurance just for the equiptment does help.
Hell, I have 24 hour infra-red recording security cameras around my house with a monitored alarm system. Makes the bad guys in stripy shirts run for miles!
I have all my guitars and amps insured as line items on our policy...replacement value and there's no deductible for them like that either. And it seems very reasonable...granted I've only got two amps and 4 guitars, and while they are expensive for me, they really aren't high end items!
