Singer left fuming after Cairo border agent scrawls number and Arabic word in green ink on vintage instrument

A run-in with customs at Cairo airport has left rock singer Bryan Adams fuming, after a border agent scrawled a number on his guitar.



The Grammy award-winning musician, who was in Egypt for a concert at the Giza pyramids, posted a picture of the vintage Martin acoustic guitar on his Instagram account.

A number and an illegible word in Arabic had been written in green ink on the mahogany instrument’s side.

“Airport customs graffiti on my 1957 Martin D-18 from Egypt. Back to the luthier bryanadamsgetup,” Adams wrote on Instagram, referring to his latest album, Get Up.

Adams said his problems with customs had begun on his arrival at the airport. “We almost didn’t get the equipment into the country, and when we did it was all marked like this,” he wrote in a Facebook message on Friday. “There were absolutely no apologies.”

A customs official said instruments were marked with serial numbers, although usually with stickers. Regarding the ink, he suggested: “Maybe it wasn’t us?”

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It is not the first time someone has written numbers on one of Adams’s guitars. In 2015, he tweeted that Air Canada had scrawled a serial number in black ink.

Bryan Adams (@bryanadams) Could someone from @AirCanada contact me about the pen damage done to my guitar? AC 8023 Toronto/Detroit. 22 July pic.twitter.com/GJsvkXL7lk

Egyptians mocked the incident on social media: “Doesn’t Adams know that we glued together Tutankhamun with super glue? It’s normal that we write something on a 60-year-old guitar,” one wrote, referring to a botched repair of the priceless Tutankhamun funerary mask in a Cairo museum.

Adams said despite the incident he would return to Egypt to perform. “Rest assured, apart from this incident, I love Egypt and look forward to returning again one day,” he said. “But without the green paint markers please.”