Pimientito -> Guitar security (May 16 2009 9:05:32)
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Its probably the worst nightmare of a musician to get their best instrument stolen and no matter how good your insurance is, its not going to replace the connection a musician has with an instument that they may have spent many years looking for. It also occurred to me that when you buy a second hand instrument that may have belonged to a particular player, there is not really any way to prove or disprove that the player did in fact own or use that instrument. This set me thinking about how guitars could be electronically tagged. This would provide 1. A record of the ownership of the instrument. 2. A degree of security making it more difficult to sell a stolen instrument. The idea came after recently taking my dog to the vet. The dog has an electronic chip under its skin with details of age, ownership, name, address, medication etc. which can easily be read by the vet by passing an electronic reader over the chip. This technology is quite simple and also very cheap now and I though that maybe it could be applied to instruments. The chip (which is very small) would have to be implanted by the luthier in a place that is impossible to remove like under the heel on the interior of the guitar. (here is a little schematic) Upon purchase the owners details could be recorded into a database. Larger music shops, luthiers and dealers could have readers. Stolen instruments could be flagged and a complete history of ownership and repairs could be recorded on the chip. Obviously this would mean that all luthiers would have to start implanting chips in instruments. What do you guys think? Is this a good idea? Is it practical? Do you think it would make any difference. Obviously I'm not suggesting that every chinese guitar should come with this system and it would only be useful to makers of hand made guitars. However might this be something that both owners and luthiers would be interested in incorporating into new instruments?
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