Musician Mitch Easter has run a recording studio in Kernersville for 30 years and had never been a victim of a burglary. That changed last week.

The Winston-Salem Journal reports that while Easter was out of town, thieves broke into a sunroom and stole a group of guitars that had been stored there while renovations to the studio were being made.

Among the guitars taken was a 12-string Fender that Easter has had since he was 12 years old. Like most of the stolen guitars, it had been used by many other artists whom Easter recorded, including guitarist Peter Buck, who played it while recording tracks for early R.E.M. albums Murmur and Reckoning.

Easter said he still regularly played the cream-colored guitar with tortoise-shell pick guard. According to Easter, his father bought him the guitar from Camel Pawn shop downtown when it was a hot spot for guitar sales in the late 1960s.

Easter reported the crime to the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office but hadn’t heard much more about it until people in the local music scene started widely spreading the word of the theft through e-mail and social media sites such as Facebook.

Kathy Clark, a DJ at WQFS in Greensboro who has also worked at The Garage music club in Winston-Salem, was among those who helped spread the word. She passed along descriptions of the guitars and asked friends to check Web sites and pawn shops to try to find them.

Easter said he’s been thrilled by the response. An incident report of the break-in listed eight stolen guitars worth a total of $13,500, but Easter says that while the guitars are insured, their valuet goes beyond their monetary worth.

Easter has run a studio in the Kernersville area since 1980, starting with the Drive-in Studio and now what he calls Fidelitorium Recordings.

In all that time, though many people had known about the studio, no one had bothered it and he’s never had a problem with crime there.

Here is a list of Easter’s stolen guitars as described on the Fidelitorium page on Facebook:

1. G&L L-2000 bass, natural, 1980-1 version (Fender headstock) (USA)

2. Jerry Jones Longhorn Bass, aquaburst, ser. no. 046706 recent (USA)

3. Fender pink paisley Stratocaster, 2004 (Japan)

4. Fender rosewood- body Telecaster, rosewood fretboard, 2003 (Mexico)

5. Fender Electric XII, Olympic White w/tortoise pickguard, 1966 (USA)

6. Kay 6-string acoustic, 1962, rebuilt by Scott Baxendale, red sunburst (USA)

7. Guild S-60, black, 1979 (USA)

The eighth stolen guitar was not Easter’s but owned by a member of a band that was recording there. It is also a Fender Telecaster.