How a Rhode Island pawn shop employee rescued a Kentucky singer's missing guitar

Kentucky singer-songwriter Nicholas Jamerson has had a love-hate relationship with his Martin guitar for the last 10 years.

The Sundy Best frontman brought the guitar on tours as a back-up, but grew frustrated because its sound didn’t lend itself to live performances. But, it's the first guitar he ever bought, and it's been through a lot of growing pains with him.

Last month, he performed a solo show a block from Harvard University. It was his fifth show in five nights.

While packing up, a crew member said, "Hey, where's the blue Calton?"

The blue Calton is the case that housed the Martin HD28 guitar.

“I don’t know,” Jamerson said. “I guess I haven’t seen it today.”

They called the previous night’s venue.

No guitar.

He called the last short-term rental.

No guitar.

He last remembered seeing it while loading the van in New York, but with a crew of six, more hands were moving equipment in and out of venues and hotel rooms than just his.

"I don’t have anything on the guitar that said it was mine," Jamerson told The Courier Journal.

He couldn't find any pictures of it or the case, so he couldn't make a post on social media and ask for help. He felt kind of helpless, but he had this feeling he can't explain.

If it’s going to come back to me, it’s going to come back to me, he thought.

Three weeks later, he opened his Instagram.

There was a message: Did you lose a guitar?

Jeff Collins knew the guitar case held something special the second he saw the handle had been replaced with a tattered bandana.

In the last 14 years working at a Rhode Island pawn shop, he’s had probably 5,000 guitars handed to him across the counter.

Something about this blue guitar case, covered in worn stickers, made him do something he's never done: Buy a guitar with the intent of finding its actual owner.

"I knew what it was worth," Collins said. "I would have given him whatever he wanted for it just to not walk away with it because then it would have just disappeared."

He opened the case. Tucked into the gray felt case was a Polaroid of a young man, a middle-aged woman and a newborn baby.

That picture is what made him go in search of its owner, but how to find him?

Stickers of places and bands haphazardly covered the case. Collins is not sure what drew him first to the one with Appalachian hills and "Nicholas Jamerson". He just had a feeling. He pulled up Instagram and typed in the name.

"It was a dead giveaway as soon as I started listening to his music through his Instagram," Collins said.

He sent Jamerson a message.

Since he dropped the guitar off at FedEx ― with a couple extra stickers he added to the case ― Collins has listened to Jamerson on Sundy Best's "Bad Imagination" nonstop.

I’m letting my bad imagination get the best of meLost in a daydream

Collins' daughter, Iverson, died from muscular dystrophy five years ago. He took care of her and her twin sister as a single father.

"It just hit me in the feels listening to that song," he said. "She made it 15 years and was only supposed to make it a couple."

He doesn't know much about Jamerson other than he hopes he tours the Northeast again so he can see him perform live. He sent the guitar back with one hope.

"Honestly," he said. "I hope he tells a story one day with it."

Collins tracked its entire journey to Floyd County, Kentucky.

On Monday, the wind chimes tinkled as Maven, Jamerson's 3-year-old daughter, ran up for a kiss while Jamerson spoke on the phone with a Courier Journal reporter.

She is the newborn in that Polaroid with Jamerson and his mother.

He's been falling asleep with her early these days, then waking up in the middle of the night to write while she sleeps.

He started picking up that old Martin.

Unlike his other guitars, the Martin wants to be played lightly, not strummed hard, like he's used to on stage. It's lending itself to a more relaxed state of playing. He's learning to love it.

"It came back to me, so maybe I need to spend more time with it," he said.

Maybe this guitar really does have stories to tell.

Maybe they'll be hits.

Maybe they'll be ones that help a pawn shop employee heal.

More: Looking for live music around Louisville? Here are 20 spots to catch a show

Stephanie Kuzydym is an enterprise and investigative reporter. She can be reached at skuzydym@courier-journal.com. Follow her at @stephkuzy.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Singer Nicholas Jamerson of Sundy Best gets his missing guitar back