“I saw a kid holding that guitar out for me to sign it. But the train was already moving… I’m thinking, ‘Man, I gotta get the kid’s number to see if I could buy it back’”: Joe Perry on the one guitar he regrets selling

Over the years, Joe Perry has put together a seriously impressive guitar collection that, at one point, was recorded as comprising 600 electric guitars and acoustic guitars. However, there is one particular guitar that he let go many years ago that he still wishes was in his possession.

In a new interview with Guitarist, the Aerosmith guitarist sat down to talk about his world-renowned guitar collection, and was quizzed over whether he’d ever sold a guitar that he now particularly regrets parting ways with.

The story involves an unassuming red Hofner Stratocaster clone that was purchased on the road, which Perry used back in the 1990s to serenade the Lake Sunapee locals on 4th of July each year with a rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner.

“I did that for a couple of years with that particular guitar, and as the years went on the guitar ended up getting back with my main collection,” Perry reflects. “I was kinda in one of those moods at the end of the tour, and I had like 400 of these guitars that I never played.

“I said, ‘I gotta get rid of some of these things. It’s time to clean house a little bit.’ I earmarked a few guitars to go and somehow that guitar got on the list.

“And like three or four months later, I found out that it was gone and was like, ‘Next time, I gotta pay more attention to this. I’m not getting rid of anything else for a while.’

However, Perry would cross paths with the Hofner S-type again a few years later – when it was presented to him at a train station by the fan who got their hands on the six-string.

“A couple of years later, we’re on the bullet train in Japan, and as the bullet train is pulling out 30 or 40 people follow us up there. As the train was moving along, I saw a kid holding that guitar out for me to sign it.

“But the train was already moving, slowly pulling out, and the kid was holding it out with a Magic Marker. I’m thinking, ‘Man, I gotta get the kid’s number to see if I could buy it back or trade it for something else,’ because it did have some sentimental value, you know?

“But we were off to the next city, and at that point I didn’t have any ideas about how to get in touch with the guy. I suppose I could have tracked him down through the fan club and tried to figure out who it was, but it was lost.”

Perry hopes the story will have a happy ending, though, and is holding out hope that he may be reunited with the Hofner at some point in the future.

“I’ll buy it back. I’ll trade it for something else, you know? It would be fun to get that back. And again, that was one of those off-the-wall, not exactly the hippest guitar of the month.

“But it sounded pretty cool and it had a really good neck. It was more about the sentimental things. I regret having lost that.”

This is just one example of Perry letting go of a guitar he later wished he kept hold of. Speaking to Total Guitar earlier this year, he revealed the golden-era Aerosmith guitar he misses the most.