I didn’t know him from Adam, and I was a little leary of opening the message, due to hackers. I have been in Looe now for a little over 3 years, and one day I got a message on Facebook. We had to sell so much stuff it was like we were starting over yet again from when we were broken into. It took a while to sell our home that was now in Goodlettsville, TN, but we eventually did. He’s been missing home for so many years now, and I said yes, let’s do it. Many more years went by, 21 years now, and Sim and I decide to move to his home town in Looe, Cornwall, UK. It gave me hope that maybe my mandolin might still be around. Sim wanted to build her a banjo to replace it, but she didn’t want anything for it. The women that had his banjo was kind though and gave it back. We called the police and since it has now been 6 years after our break in, there are no records of it anymore. Sim got all the information he could of where this banjos new owner now lived.
#KENTUCKY MANDOLIN SERIAL NUMBERS SERIAL NUMBERS#
Luckily, banjos, guitars, and mandolins have serial numbers to go by, fiddles and handmade instruments that were gifts, do not. A gentleman came in with a Gibson bella voce banjo. Sim is a luthier and has gone in to business himself repairing and building mandolins and guitars. Sim and I have been married now for a while, and more years went by, 6 to be exact when his banjo came back to be worked on. I was starting to think it was thrown in a dumpster because it had my maiden name on it, Renee Radeke. I got it back, and I was over the moon, but still hoped that mandolin would eventually show up. I went to the police and met with the guy that was advertising it for sale. I couldn’t believe it, but there is was in black and white. Lots of things could be replaced, but not that mandolin.Ī year went by, and all the time, I was perusing the paper and calling pawn shops for the instruments. I never thought anything like this would happen to us. Someone had broken into our home on and stolen everything!! The took the usual, TV’s, VCR, jewelry, money, small appliances, but also stole all our instruments including the mandolin Sim built me, that was the symbol of his love. We were in the house not quite 5 months when it happened. We took possession in January 1996, and worked on it as much as we could when we were not working at our jobs. It was a little house that needed some work, but it was ours. In the meantime, we bought a house together in Joelton, TN, just outside of Nashville. We planned a wedding for a year to the day that he proposed to me. I was the most happiest girl in the world. I actually played mandolin first, and my father wanted me to switch to fiddle for the band I played in with him, years ago.Ī few days after my birthday, Sim proposed. I play fiddle yes, but I also play mandolin. I had met a guy that was handsome, talented, and highly skilled, and he built this beautiful instrument for me. He gave me a beautiful white mandolin with my name on the fingerboard for my birthday. Little did I know that he was going to propose to me, and that he built me a gorgeous mandolin. We had wonderful visits together and it was always sad when he had to fly back home, but he soon was back again.
He stayed with dear friends, Paul and Joan Connor. Sim came back to Nashville a month later to visit again, and we got to know each other more and played much more music together. There was no Facebook back then or SKYPE. We kept in contact for the following months, long distance, via phone and snail mail. And so that was the start of our relationship. We said our goodbyes and I said I’d pick them up and take them to the airport the next day. We kissed in the rain for what seemed like forever. He swung me back in his arms and kissed me. It was a rainy evening and I’m a bit of a huggie person, so I hugged his mom quick and she ran in to the hotel, and then I hugged Sim. After the party I took Sim and his mother back to the hotel where they were staying. Towards the end of their trip we had a going away party for them. Sim and his mother visited for a month, and we played lot of music together at many different venues including SPBGMA, a big bluegrass convention in town. We became friends, but I had no idea he liked me as much as he did. We met in Nashville, TN, but Sim was visiting the music scene with his mother, from England. We met at a jam session as we are both musicians. I met my husband to be, Sim Daley in January 1995. Today I had the best news in my life, but I must start from the beginning. This article is a contribution from Missy Renee Daley, a delightful story about how the custom mandolin her husband made for her back in 1996 found its way back to her after having been stolen shortly after she received it.