WHAT, YOU NEVER MISPLACED ANYTHING?:

The return of a rare cello leaves a trail of question marks: The strange tale of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's $3.5 million lost and found Stradivarius. (Daniel B. Wood, 5/20/04, CS Monitor)

With national and international press packed cheek by jowl in the Philharmonic's Choral Hall, sound booms were lowered, lights aimed, and pens poised.

But somehow, despite the best intentions, the Tuesday affair raised as many questions as it answered with this announcement: The Philharmonic's $3.5 million Stradivarius cello, stolen from the principal cellist's home last month, had been found.

The objet du jour was not there - only oversized, full color photos of the vintage 1684 instrument. Perched on giant easels were images of the city's seemingly most-talked-about single crime since the Black Dahlia murder in 1947 - sprawled on a white-clothed operating table in an unnamed location.

A professorial-looking man in blue rubber gloves hovered next to a bulb-lit magnifying glass, examining damage to the instrument as if it were wounds of a human victim on TV-hit "CSI: Crime Scene Investigators."

But those wounds - appearing as a nearly imperceptible crack down the cello's face (perhaps 10 inches long), cracks on the back (not shown), and loosened strings - were only explained as "routine." The instrument would be restored to full value by October, said Robert Cauer, the Philharmonic's string technician.

"I wasn't there to see the injuries happen so I couldn't say," Mr. Cauer told me, rebuffing a query about what they were and how they could be fixed.

Second on the list of question marks was Philharmonic Principal Cellist Peter Stumpf, who had been in personal purgatory since the theft. The musician had arrived home late and weary after performing in Santa Barbara on April 25, and carelessly left the cello on the front steps.

How could an instrument - one of 60 cellos made 320 years ago by master instrumentmaker Antonio Stradivari - be left like a forgotten sack of groceries? Los Angeles Philharmonic Association President Deborah Borda cheerfully reminded reporters this kind of forgetfulness happens all the time. In January, violinist Gidon Kremer forgot his $3 million Guarneri del Gesu instrument on a train. In 1999, Yo-Yo Ma left his own $2.5 million Stradivarius cello in a New York City taxi.

Graves honestly surprised wallet returned (Joe Kay, 5/19/04, The Associated Press)

Danny Graves couldn't believe what showed up in the mail.

The Cincinnati Reds closer lost his wallet at the start of a West Coast trip last week, and figured he would never see it again. The wallet contained his credit cards, his driver's license, his Reds identification card to get into ballparks, and about $1,400 in cash.

A man who cleaned the team's bus in San Diego not only returned the wallet and all of its contents, but took extraordinary precautions to make sure it would be safe during shipping.

"The guy kept the cash and exchanged it for traveler's checks so it wouldn't get stolen through the mail," Graves said Tuesday. "It was like $1,400 in cash. He did say, 'I borrowed $26 to overnight it to you.'

"He sent his name, address and phone number. He said, 'All I ask for is could you please sign an autograph for my father.' He's going to get a little more than an autograph."

Geez, and The Wife gets all cranky when the ATM eats our bankcard just because I enter the wrong PIN three times...

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 23, 2004 4:05 PM