Breaking: Stolen Strad sells for $2.27 million
mainMin-Jin Kym’s Stradivarius violin, stolen from London’s Euston Station in 2010 and later recovered by police, sold today in an online auction for £1.385 million. The buyer is a UK music festival. Press release below.
Stolen ‘ex-Kym’ Stradivarius sold for $2.27m [£1,385,000]
Stolen and recovered Stradivarius sold at auction by Tarisio for £1.385 million The world-famous Stradivarius violin that was stolen from London’s Euston Station in 2010 and later recovered has been sold today, 18th December 2013 for £1.385 million including the buyer’s premium.
The ‘ex-Kym’ Stradivarius has been sold by Tarisio, the leading auction house for fine stringed instruments.
“The 1696 Stradivari has been purchased by a British music festival led by an English violinist. We congratulate the new owner and wish them the best of luck and success with the violin. We are delighted that it will be played and enjoyed for many more years to come and that it will actively contribute to the musical vibrancy of this country through the festival and its wonderful work,” says Jason Price, Director of Tarisio.
The violin previously belonged to London-based violinist Min-Jin Kym, a celebrated international soloist and chamber musician and the story of the theft received worldwide attention and sympathy. After chasing leads across Europe, the instrument was recovered three years later by the police in the Midlands, astonishingly undamaged. The thief tried to flog it for £100.
This sounds terrific. I don’t know how often music festivals own instruments, but it sounds like a great idea for a very fine violin to belong to a festival, so that a visiting violinist would not have to risk carrying his or her own instrument to the festival, especially given the increasing hassles of air travel, but could use a quality instrument upon arrival even if not the one accustomed to.
sounds like the violinist head of the festival wanted to “store” the violin and use it him/herself while getting the festival to pay for it. Boo. And the disrespect musicians have for safeguarding their instruments is absurd — they should be penalized for not taking proper precautions/ignoring the value of the instrument. Would be helpful if we knew whether Kim was rich enough to buy it herself, whether it was “mortgaged” or gifted to her…
Min Kym tells how she came to acquire the violin, how it was snatched from her, and what has happened to her since then, in her 2017 book “Gone: A Girl, A Violin, A life Unstrung.”