A lost Stradivarius violin - possibly worth $16 million - has been returned to a concert violinist Alexander Dubach after he left it on a train in Switzerland.
After the violin was lost, it was handed in at the lost property office at the train station on Sunday. A fellow passenger Pascal Tretola returned the priceless instrument. The violin did not even belong to Dubach, but the owner had lent it to him.
Dubach was very relieved. "I would never have been able to repair the damage," he said, vowing never to transport it by himself again.
"I will pick it up just before a concert and give it back straight away afterwards," he said.
Dubach's friend and the violin's owner, who wants to remain anonymous, said he and Dubach would reward Tretola even though he "had not asked for anything."
Antonio Stradivari (1644 - 1737), Italian master crafter of string instruments, built an estimated 1000 violins during his time, and around 600 of them are still known to be in existence today. They have been priced from the hundreds of thousands of dollars into the millions.
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