Ottawa-area singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards wants you to keep an eye out for her rare and valuable guitar that was stolen from her home.

“I can only guess that someone came in through the back door when it was unlocked, picked it up, without a case, and walked out,” Edwards wrote on Thursday in a Facebook post.

Her appeal attracted nearly 23,000 shares and 4,000 likes from across Canada in less than 18 hours.

She did not say when the 1957 Les Paul Junior guitar with the serial number 223 was stolen.

On Facebook, she warns the thief that the instrument can’t be put up for sale online, in a pawn shop or a guitar store without attracting considerable attention.

“You won’t be able to play it in front of people,” writes Edwards, who lives in the Ottawa suburb of Stittsville. “It will draw attention, someone will notice. People who buy and sell valuable instruments know exactly what they are, and when they are stolen.”

She posted photos of herself playing the guitar along with her appeal.

“You will be caught if you try and sell it. I have tons of images of it, and documented serial number. So you have no chance to sell it and make money. And worse, you will be charged for a significant theft, and linked to a break and enter.”

She writes she is willing to let things slide if the guitar is returned.

“If the guitar is returned, I can accept a ‘no questions asked’ agreement,” she writes. “Whether that means the guitar is returned to my business, Quitters coffee, to my home, or through a mutual acquaintance. I can accept a foolish drunken teenage lapse of judgement, a momentary hiccup in your moral being.

“I can promise you that the instrument will not make you money, it will not go unnoticed and you will at some point be caught.

“Do the right thing.”