Guitar theft occurs same day Halifax man buys instrument

On Friday, Mark Gallant bought his dream guitar, a Martin D-35, on sale at Long and McQuade in Halifax.

It was stolen before he could play a single tune.

"I just thought, 'Today is the day to get my Martin.' Apparently it was the day to lose my Martin," he said.

Gallant saved up for the instrument by planting trees in western Canada.

"Every tree that I planted I was thinking, 'Oh, I'm going to have this guitar.' That was kind of my reward for getting through the summer."

Snatched from his car

Gallant says he bought the instrument for $2,200 dollars and played a gig on his old guitar shortly afterwards at Cafe Cempoal on Agricola Street.

The Martin was snatched from his car when he was loading up his gear.

"I'm still kind of in this hilarious shock. It's so ridiculous that I didn't even get to play it for one day. It was supposed to be my lifetime guitar. It's kind of ironic," he said.

The assistant manager at the music store is sympathetic about the loss of a professional-quality instrument.

"To hear something like that is a huge drag. Especially having it for a couple of hours and falling into those types of circumstances, it's terrible to hear," said Andrew Waite.

Waite says he encourages customers to immediately make note the serial number of a new instrument and call his store if one is stolen.

He says customers have been calling Long and McQuade to check up on suspiciously good deals online.

Reward posters

"We do get people quite a few people calling in to cover their butts," he said.

Gallant has been putting up no-questions-asked reward posters in the north-end Halifax and writing about his loss on Facebook.He hopes the publicity might help his Martin find its way home.

"I'm hoping somebody somewhere will recognize it," he said.

"Someone might have grabbed it and ditched it. Or sold it really quick. I'm hoping against hope here that someone will bring it back to me."