Richie Sambora has looked back on the recovery of his long-lost Gibson Explorer, revealing he once hired a private investigator to get his early Bon Jovi era electric guitar back.
It’s one of 2026’s most heartwarming guitar stories. After his prized possession was stolen from a warehouse back in 1985, Sambora was reunited with his original 1976 Explorer, bringing a 41-year mystery to a happy ending.
There were a few bumps along the road, though. Before it was returned to him via Matthieu Lucas of Matt’s Guitar Shop, Sambora decided to take matters into his own hands, when the Explorer ended up at a Guitar Center.
“The record company had to lend us money to buy new equipment and we just went and did it,” Sambora tells People of the stolen guitar. “So obviously what happened in my career happened in my career, it was fantastic.
“And about 10 years ago, I get a call from Guitar Center in New Jersey. I'm staying at my mom's, and they go, ‘Your Explorer was in here. We just sold it to some guy.'”
According to People, Sambora called the buyer and offered him double what he paid for the guitar to get it back. Apparently, he never heard back, so he went one step further: he hired a private investigator to help with the hunt.
Eventually, Lucas came across the Explorer while going about his usual business and thought it looked eerily familiar. As Lucas told Guitar World last year, he bought the guitar on the spot, and sent a picture to Richie to confirm if his suspicions were true.
And they were true, as Sambora remembers: “He sent me a picture and I go, ‘Get the f--k out of here. You got it.’ He goes, ‘I knew it was yours. I bought it immediately for you.' So that was really, really cool of him.”
Sambora was thankful for Lucas’ intervention. He used the Explorer extensively in his early days with Bon Jovi, playing it on the band’s self-titled debut and 7800° Fahrenheit. With the help of luthier Phil Petillo, Sambora added a few mods of his own, including the star inlays.
“I said to myself, ‘This is the guitar that I can make talk.' When I wanted to be a badass, that's what I took out,” Sambora tells People of the Explorer. “It easily was the best guitar I owned, and the specs were mine. So basically it was the first Richie Sambora custom model.
“It was f---ing trippy as s--t,” he adds of being reunited with his instrument. “I put it on, I started to play it. It seemed like it was untouched. It's almost in perfect shape.”
Last year, Lucas recounted his recovery of Sambora’s Explorer, and told Guitar World how he helped get the former Bon Jovi guitarist’s prized possession back in his hands.
