Local : Dick Dale’s 1st Electric Guitar Stolen
Surf-guitar pioneer Dick Dale learned this morning that the first electric guitar he ever picked has been stolen from the Huntington Beach International Museum.
“I’m still numb,” said Dale, who lives in Huntington Beach. The thief “couldn’t have been a real surfer. Real surfers don’t do that. It’s got to be some misguided fool.”
The guitar and a VCR were stolen between Friday night and Saturday morning from the museum at 312 Walnut Ave., police said.
Dale said he was especially disappointed because he was hoping to use the guitar in the fall at a concert for U.S. Air Force soldiers at the Berlin Wall in Germany. Dale had turned down a “generous” offer from the Hard Rock Cafe in Texas, which collects rock ‘n’ roll relics, to give it to the museum.
“My mother wanted it close to home,” he said. “Huntington Beach is the mecca. There’s no place else that guitar deserves to be.”
The white electric guitar, with the painted initials D. D., was purchased by Dale at a Los Angeles pawnshop for $200 in 1955.
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