Stradivarius handed in
Image by: HO / Reuters
A Stradivarius violin - possibly worth tens of million of rands - was handed in at a Swiss lost-property office after a hapless musician left it on a train, police said on Monday.
The owner had lent the precious instrument to a musician friend who took it on a train on Friday but forgot it when he got off at Bern.
After a fruitless search by train staff, surveillance cameras spotted a passenger walking off with the instrument at a different station.
The violin turned up in the lost-property office at Bern station on Sunday.
Police did not disclose the names of anyone involved, or the value of the instrument.
Around 600 violins made by Italian master craftsman Antonio Stradivari are still in circulation.
One fetched about R110-million at a charity auction last year for victims of the Japanese tsunami.
A US violinist left a R32-million Stradivarius in the back of a New York taxi in 2008. The taxi driver returned the violin to its owner.
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