Contributed Photos
To the pawn shop customer who now has Robert Picagli’s early ‘60s-vintage Gibson B‑25 hollow body guitar: We’d like to introduce you to a little girl and her late grandfather.
The little girl is Alana Kieckle (pictured above). She’s 4 years old. She loves to make music.
Her late great-grandfather was Robert Picagli Sr. (at right in above photo) A painter by trade, Picagli also played guitar, seriously enough to record and perform with a successful local early-‘60s doo-wop band called the Van Dykes.
Picagli collected guitars. The Gibson B‑25 was one of his favorites. (Pictured is a different Gibson from the set he collected.)
He passed the guitars and the riffability down to his son Robert Jr., whom he also taught to paint. (Read a previous “Word on the Street” story about that here.) Robert in turn has been keeping the Gibsons in storage to eventually hand down to his granddaughter Alana.
Paul Bass Photo
Robert Sr. died in 2019. In 2021, Robert Jr. (pictured above), who had moved from Fair Haven Heights back to a family home in the Hill neighborhood, had to leave the state for an unspecified extended stay. He left the cherished Gibsons with a friend on the shoreline.
His friend’s brother, who had a drug habit, made off with the prized Gibson one day. He took it to a Wallingford pawn shop, picked up some money. He died not long after.
Robert Jr. didn’t learn about the sale until recently, after he had returned to New Haven. He headed to the pawn shop, and was told they had no record of who had bought the guitar. (An employee of the shop, Silas Deane Pawn, confirmed to the Independent that the staff does not keep records on buyers, just on sellers. State law indeed requires pawn dealers to track only the sellers.)
So now he’s looking for the buyer — with an offer: “We’ll pay to get it back. Whatever he paid for it, we’ll pay a little extra for coming through.”
No questions asked.
“The buyer is not responsible. I know this,” Robert Jr. said. “I just want it back.”
The final verse of this song will be written by the buyer. To give it a happy ending, they can call Robert Jr. at (203) 935‑1209. The serial number on the guitar is 124788. It has one bent tuning key.
