Toronto Symphony member recovers lost violin

[Shrunk]

Interesting story, with an ethical question:  Should the bag lady have received the reward?

http://www.thestar.com/article/412783

[Szykneij]

Should the bag lady have received the reward?

I'll vote no. If the events are accurately presented in the story, the bag lady wasn't interested in who the rightful owner was. She just wanted to get what she could for the violin. If it wasn't for the efforts of the guy who got it back, the owner would probably never have seen it again.

[m_gigena]

"Ein goldner Ring
ragt dir am Finger;
hörst du, Alp?
Der, acht' ich, gehört mit zum Hort.", the lady said. 

[Anne]

I agree with Szykniej for who should get the $ and why.

[Shrunk]

I'll vote no. If the events are accurately presented in the story, the bag lady wasn't interested in who the rightful owner was. She just wanted to get what she could for the violin. If it wasn't for the efforts of the guy who got it back, the owner would probably never have seen it again.

I heard a radio interview with the violinist that gave a few more details that might affect your opinion.  The person who eventually returned the violin called the violinist when his wife first noticed the case in the bag lady's shopping cart, but before he had actually recovered it, and was then told of the $1000 reward.  So the newspaper story may not be quite accurate when it says the person was unaware of the reward until he returned the instrument.  According to the radio interview, the finder then located the bag lady and, after a prolonged negotiation, eventually persuaded to part with the violin for $35 plus a silver ring.  It didn't sound like she was planning on selling it, but had just added it to the assortment of items she habitually carried around in a shopping cart.

What was not made clear was whether he told the bag lady who the violin belonged to, and that there was a reward for its return.  That's where I think the ethical questions arise.  I have no problem with the violinist giving the reward to who ever happened to be the one to get the intrument back into his hands.  But I'm not sure if the "Good Samaritan" behaved ethically, if he didn't let the bag lady know the full significance of the instrument  and the potential benefit she could realize by returning it.  Of course, if she was aware and insisted on keeping the violin anyway, that's a different matter.  (I wonder what the law is in that case?)

Anyway, not to get too heavy on this.  I just thought it was a cute story.

[Szykneij]

Anyway, not to get too heavy on this.  I just thought it was a cute story.

I agree. It seems like it turned into a WIN  WIN  WIN situation.

[jochanaan]

My sympathies tend at least partly toward the bag lady.  Whether she intended to or not, she saved a valuable instrument.  If she didn't know what she had and the "rescuers" didn't tell her, that's almost like stealing.

At the very least, Mr. Wulff should offer to split the reward.

(Full disclosure: I know a number of homeless people.  They're not all "bums" or psychos; most of them are just ordinary people down on their luck.  And I believe that societies will eventually be judged partly on how they treat their poorest.  Maybe that belief colors my view.)

[m_gigena]

(Full disclosure: I know a number of homeless people.  They're not all "bums" or psychos; most of them are just ordinary people down on their luck.  And I believe that societies will eventually be judged partly on how they treat their poorest.  Maybe that belief colors my view.)

I know a few too. When I'm at the library of my university's Law School I see many of them, they usually borrow books and read them there.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

My sympathies tend partly to the bag lady, too. One question, though: she could know a violin isn't like any other thing and that someone had lost it. But the role of the couple, on the other hand, isn't completely ethical either - they had more information than the bag lady (i.e. knowing about the reward), kept silent about it and made a very good deal out of their 'goodness'.

[Szykneij]

Another missing Strad:

AP LONDON -Three people were arrested for stealing a 1.2 million-pound ($1.85 million) antique violin from an internationally acclaimed musician while she stopped for a snack at a London sandwich bar, British police said Thursday.

South Korean violinist Min-Jin Kym was eating inside the sandwich shop outside Euston station on Nov. 29 when she noticed that her black violin case — which contained the 300-year-old Stradivarius as well as two expensive bows — was missing, police said.

The violin, made in 1696, is one of only around 400 in the world. It was stolen with a Peccatte bow, valued at 62,000 pounds, and another bow worth more than 5,000 pounds.

Police arrested and charged John Maughan, 26, and two teenagers on Wednesday for theft. The teens, aged 16 and 14 years old, cannot be named for legal reasons. Maughan is in custody and the two teenagers are free on bail.

Police are appealing for information about the whereabouts of the rare instrument. An insurance company has offered a 15,000 pound reward for information that could lead to the violin's recovery.

South Korea-born Kym began playing the violin aged six. She made her international debut with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra when she was 13. Since then, she has performed with some of the world's leading orchestras.

[The new erato]

JFC there's too many Asian female violinists!

[DavidRoss]

South Korean violinist Min-Jin Kym was eating inside the sandwich shop outside Euston station on Nov. 29 when she noticed that her black violin case — which contained the 300-year-old Stradivarius as well as two expensive bows — was missing, police said.

What was going on with Ms Kym that she paid so little attention to the precious instrument entrusted to her care?

[Gurn Blanston]

What was going on with Ms Kym that she paid so little attention to the precious instrument entrusted to her care?

Hell of a sandwich they serve!   

JFC there's too many Asian female violinists!

I know you mean too many to keep track of. And you're right. Guess it's a cultural thing, can't complain about that. Wish the rest of the world was so keen on it.

[Brian]

Hell of a sandwich they serve!   

Having actually been in that sandwich shop before, I can assure you that it's not a hell of a sandwich.

[Gurn Blanston]

Having actually been in that sandwich shop before, I can assure you that it's not a hell of a sandwich.

Well, I was trying to give the careless wench an easy out. Hope I don't have to revert to 'moron'...

[Brian]

Well, I was trying to give the careless wench an easy out. Hope I don't have to revert to 'moron'...

You're more charitable than I am, Gurn! Another violin story, lingering unsourced in my memory, has it that somebody left a Strad in a taxi...

[Gurn Blanston]

 NEWARK, N.J. | Wed May 7, 2008 4:17am IST
(Reuters) - A Grammy-nominated violinist who left his $4 million, 285-year-old Stradivarius in a taxi repaid the driver who returned it with a free concert at an airport taxi stand on Tuesday.

Philippe Quint, 34, left his 1723 Ex-Keisewetter violin in Mohammed Khalil's taxi when returning from Newark Liberty Airport in New Jersey at 3 a.m. last week and Khalil later returned it without knowing its value, Quint said.

"I was retrieving my bags from the trunk ... and when I turned back I saw the cab already very much in the distance," Quint said, immediately realizing the violin was in the back seat of the car.

After frantically reporting the loss to the taxi commission, reviewing photos of licensed taxi drivers and informing police, Quint went back to the taxi stand hoping the driver would reappear.

Then he received a call from the Port Authority, which operates the airport, and was told Khalil had returned with the prize to the taxi stand, where they soon met up.

"It was only five or six hours from the time when it left to the time that I got it but it felt like six years of my life," Quint said.

Quint gave Khalil and his colleagues a 30-minute recital on Tuesday -- although using a less valuable violin.

Quint said the Stradivarius -- the name for instruments made by famed Italian Antonio Stradivari -- was appraised at $4 million in part because it was one of only three Ex-Keisewetter violins to exist. He has it on loan from two U.S. philanthropists.

Stradivari's instruments are praised for their sound, which projects clearly with rich tones, and are considered easy to play as they are highly responsive to a musician's touch.

He made about 1,100 in his lifetime, most of them violins, and about 650 survive today.

When Quint next performs on the "Strad" in New York on Sept. 23, he will provide tickets for Khalil and his family.

[Gurn Blanston]

A Stradivarius Lost for 27 Years Resurfaces, but Who Owns It?
October 18, 1994|ERIC MALNIC and MATHIS CHAZANOV | TIMES STAFF WRITERS
Back in 1967, David Margetts lost a violin that he had borrowed from UCLA.

He either left it in the back seat of his car and somebody swiped it, or he left it on the roof of his car and drove off--he's not sure which.

In any event, the violin disappeared. Which would not have been such a big deal if it had not been the Duke of Alcantara Stradivarius, an $800,000 instrument that is one of the most treasured violins in the world.

[Gurn Blanston]

Scariest one. A Strad cello is way rarer than a fiddle!

Orchestra regains lost Stradivarius
Deseret News (Salt Lake City), May 19, 2004 by John M. Broder New York Times News Service
LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Philharmonic was reunited with its priceless Stradivarius cello on Tuesday, three weeks after a clumsy thief stole it from the porch of the orchestra's principal cellist.

The cello, slightly damaged, narrowly escaped being turned into a compact disc case. It is now undergoing repairs and is expected to return to the stage of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in October.

"This is a great day for us," said a beaming Deborah Borda, president of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association. "The cello and the orchestra are back together."

The instrument, built in the Cremona, Italy, workshop of Antonio Stradivari in 1684, is one of only 60 cellos made by Stradivari still extant and is insured for $3.5 million.

The cello was turned over to police on Saturday by Melanie Stevens, a 29-year-old nurse who said she found it, in its plastic case, on April 28, three days after it was stolen. She said she saw it leaning against a dumpster in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, a mile from where it was stolen. She told the police that a homeless man helped load it into her car.

She said that she had no idea at the time that the philharmonic was missing its irreplaceable cello.

Stevens asked her boyfriend, Igal Asseraf, a cabinetmaker, if he could repair the cracks and scratches in the instrument, said her lawyer, Ronald Hoffman. Asseraf agreed to try, but said that if he could not fix it he would hinge the top and turn it into a case for compact discs.

Borda said on Tuesday that she reacted with horror when she heard that.

"At least it wasn't a planter," she said.

Stevens stored the cello in a back bedroom until she saw a television report 10 days ago about the missing Stradivarius. She contacted a lawyer, who negotiated its surrender on Saturday. A $50,000 reward had been offered for the cello, but it was not immediately clear if Stevens was eligible for it.

The cello was taken April 25 from the front porch of Robert Stumpf, leader of the orchestra's cello section. He had inadvertently left the instrument outside, officials said. A security videotape caught the thief riding away on a bicycle, and records the sound of the bicycle colliding with trash cans.

Borda, accompanied by the orchestra's stringed instrument conservator, Robert Cauer, went to Los Angeles Police Department headquarters on Monday to identify the cello. Cauer immediately recognized the instrument, which he has tended for 20 years. He called the damage routine.

Stumpf, mortified, appeared briefly at the news conference announcing the retrieval on Tuesday. "I'm just incredibly relieved it's been solved and the cello has been returned," he said. "This has been an enormous weight on me for the last three weeks."

[Gurn Blanston]

Note the common theme in the 2 cases there: Toronto. Then Canadians better watch their stuff!