Hi,
Sorry to hear about your loss. No insurance?
In '93 I was living in Nijmegen, Holland and had a collection of about 25 axes. A lot of (warmoth) strats I build myself, Some vintage strats and teles, 3 kramers (2 with aluminium necks), 2 hamers, A seagull 12 string, a few RGs, a few basses... Amps, stompboxes, my clothes, my 8-track, all my CD's (over 400), my old vinyl records, my computers, boxes with personal stuff, all my pictures, grades from school, you name it. EVERYTHING was lost, except the 3 guitars and some stuff I kept at the new place. I am a man without a tangible past, since I haven't even got pictures of when I was a kid and all that, since then. Zilch, nada. 1 suitcase, a few guitars and that was all I had.
All because some son of a b¡tch put the building on fire, actually the sleezy bar that was on the street level, after a fight with the owner, by throwing in a molotov ****tail.
He was convicted to 8 years for attempted multiple manslaughter. I swear I'll still kill him if I ever run into him. He was sort of a hillbilly, a lot of kids with different women, never had a job, always drunk, in and out of jail all the time...
I was moving to another apartment and was paying both at the time. The insurance in the end didn't pay out, because "I was not living at that address anymore at the time of the incident". *sigh*
I remember I was speechless for 2 weeks when I found my house burned down when I came back from a cool vacation. There was a picture of the remains of the building on the first page of the local newspaper, that's how I found out on that monday morning.
Since I had to start from scratch again, I got together the little I had left, quit my job and went living in Spain. That's where I've lived ever since.
I still miss them, my ES335, my warmoths...
Anyway, life goes on. I got over it, but it was VERY hard.
I hope this relieves your pain a little. Things can always be worse.
Regards,
Jean Paul
