"This was my girlfriend for a long, long time… And I’ve got a lot of success with it”: Richie Sambora was so desperate to track down his stolen Explorer he hired a private detective – now after 41 years it has been returned to him

Richie Sambora has been reunited with his much-loved, much-modded Gibson Explorer 41 years after it was stolen.

This is the electric guitar that Sambora played during Bon Jovi’s dizzying ascent, his love affair with the Explorer beginning the moment he first saw Eric Clapton play one.

Still in shock at the sight of seeing “his old girlfriend” after four decades, Sambora reveals that he was so desperate to get it back that, at one point, he even hired a private detective to track it down.

In the end, it was Matt Lucas, CEO of Matt’s Guitar Shop, in Paris, who tracked it down and arranged this remarkable reunion, posting the moment to his YouTube channel for posterity.

“I just wanted to be like Eric Clapton and Eric Clapton was playing Explorers,” says Sambora, who says he was just 16 when bought it for $250. “I saw one in a music shop, Blue Rose Music, and I didn’t have the money for it, so he let me pay it off over time.”

Sambora never stopped searching for it. He had kept his antenna up, and nearly made a deal with a guy who had a bead on it.

“After I lost track of it, 10 years ago, then called a guy, he said, ‘Okay’ then he split, I put a private detective on him,” says Sambora. “And he moved to Colorado or someplace, so maybe who brought it in to you was his son?”

“I have no idea,” says Lucas. “The main priority is that we brought back the guitar.”

For a guitar that has been in the wilds – who knows where – for four decades it has returned to Sambora in remarkable condition, not least because his original mods are still present and correct. Those bobbins on those three humbuckers got a lot of abuse from his pick scrapes.

The neck pickup is a little sunken. Sambora recalls he might have coloured in the middle pickup with a black marker pen at some stage. These memories are not readily accessible, at least not just yet. It might take him a bit of time for all that to come back.

But this was one of Sambora’s go-to instruments just as Bon Jovi’s fame was cresting. There was something OTT and ‘80s about the triple-humbucker configuration. All the tone options, a la Ace Frehley; the DiMarzio Super Distortion at the bridge position. Lucas says it might also be the first Gibson Explorer to be retrofitted with an early model Floyd Rose double-locking vibrato unit.

Indeed, it might be one of the first Gibson guitars with a Floyd, with Neal Schon of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ 1977 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe – recently sold at auction for $250,000 – the other.

“That’s probably correct,” says Sambora. “I’ve never seen one before that.”

Sambora got the legendary New Jersey luthier Phil Petillo to mod it for him, even going as far as replacing the rosewood fingerboard with ebony, and applying a trademark touch that would be seen on future Sambora signature guitars.

“That was the beginning of my putting the stars on the neck. And I also did an ebony fretboard, which was not on the original,” he says.

That’s not the type of job you would hand to just any luthier, but then Petillo did work for the likes of Tom Petty, Keith Richards, Bruce Springsteen, and would work at Kramer and Travis Bean. When the Smithsonian brought in a Stradivarius for repair (reportedly in an armoured truck), it was Petillo they reached out to. Petillo’s refretted Sambora’s Explorer with his patented “Pyramid” Precision Frets

It was Petillo who rerouted the Explorer’s body to make room for the third middle humbucker. Other choice mods can be found on the guitar’s neck, where the finish has been removed to make it a little faster under the hand. All of that body work to accommodate the Floyd Rose meant some remedial work needed to be done by the bridge. Petillo had an idea. What about an ebony inlay to match the fingerboard. He duly inlaid it with stars.

Richie Sambora’s Gibson Explorer Recovered After 41 Years (Full Exclusive Interview) ! - YouTube

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“They are different from these,” says Sambora, referencing the fingerboard’s stars. “Because it was done at different times. This was done over, two-and-a-half, three years, because I didn’t have enough money to do it all at once. I almost let the guitar have its own life in that respect. I was letting it be.”

Check out the image at the top of the page. And what about Sambora’s playing in the live videos capturing those 1984 performances? This was Bon Jovi on point, supporting the Scorpions and Whitesnake in Japan. Anvil were on the bill, too. The Explorer could last through Bon Jovi’s entire set.

“In Tokyo, that was the first big stadium tour,” says Sambora. “This thing never went out of tune, man.”

And by the looks of it, Sambora won’t let it out of his sight again.

“This is an amazing moment,” he says. “This was my girlfriend for a long, long time… And I’ve got a lot of success with it.”