Apr. 22, 1964 - An unidentified man entered an Eighth Avenue pawnshop just before 6 p.m. yesterday and asked for a $15 loan on a violin. He got the money, but the asking price was a mere fraction of its value. The violin turned out to be the rare Guarnerius stolen from Carnegie Hall about an hour before.
The violin, on loan from the Juilliard School of Music, was used by Itzhak Perlman in winning the Leventritt International Competition yesterday afternoon at Carnegie Hall. While the 18-year-old Israeli violinist was being congratulated on his victory, the violin was left unattended in a backstage room and was stolen.
Albert Golin, proprietor of the United Pledge Society, 860 Eighth Avenue, was reading his morning newspaper today at his shop and noticed a story about the violin’s disappearance. He recalled the $15 loan the night before and checked the violin. He found the word “Guarnerius” in script on the inside of the instrument. The back was stamped “Juilliard No. 65.” Mr. Golin called Isaac Stern, spokesman for the judges in the competition, and his wife called Juilliard.
Neither Mr. Golin nor his two assistants paid much attention to the “tall, darks-skinned, nondescript man,” as Mr. Golin described him, who brought in the violin in the closing rush.
“It was a nice-looking fiddle,” explained Mr. Golin, “and there were two bows and a clean looking case. When they ask the right price, I give it to them without question. We pay $25 for cheap Japanese violins, so when this guy came along, I was only too glad to give him $15.”
The recovered violin is the famous “Mayseder” made in Cremona, Italy, about 220 years ago by Giuseppe Guarneri, most famous of the violin-making family. The violin, was insured for $15,000, was once the property of the American virtuoso, Maud Powell (1869-1920).
Mr. Perlman, on learning that the instrument had been found, said, “I feel wonderful, I feel very happy. It was a good instrument, and Juilliard had lent it to me. In addition, two bows of mine were in the case. I received the violin a month or two ago to use for the competition.”
Juilliard has a large collection of stringed instruments, of which two are Guarneri violins. It lends the instruments to students for special concerts.
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