oboeinsight

(Moving this to the top of the blog, in case someone missed it.)

Please keet your eyes open for this oboe:

I’m writing this comment to try to get the word out that my 1968 Cabart was stolen from my home on Christmas. I don’t want the criminal(s) to profit from the crime, so I’d like to just make sure anyone that might be trying to buy an Oboe doesn’t purchase one that is stolen. The serial number is 9J-30, and it has a small crack in the upper piece under the keys near the joint to the lower piece. Thank you for your help! -Myra in San Antonio, TX

If you have any information on this email Myra at mpila [at] att [dot] net … thanks!

Myra … SO sorry this happened to you.

[Posted earlier but now placed at the top of blog entries because a "dimpled" photo has been added!]

This was in a paper on September 29, so perhaps it’s even been located by now … but I never thought about an aerodynamic oboe … mostly because I rarely think!

He said: “There are only three other oboes like it in the world. It may sound strange but my instrument is customised to the way I play, so while I will play, I’ll have to borrow one and have only a week to adjust to it.”

The oboe, constructed by specialist craftsman Yanko Petrov, who runs Sound Alchemy in Thornton Heath, has a distinctive specially-designed bell.

It was in a light brown wooden box with a silver reed box engraved with the name “Dom” inside.

Mr Kelly, 37, said: “The bell is very distinctive. The inside is dimpled like a golf ball to make it more aerodynamic and improve the air flow.”

RTWT

Keep your eyes open for this:

STOLEN OBOE!!!!

POR FAVOR DIFUNDIR !!!!!!!!!!!

Ayer 16 de julio por la noche en Salta, Argentina, le robaron a MARCELO MERCADO , el oboe Green Line (número de serie G11755).

Cualquier información, por favor contactarse con mercadomarcelo [at] hotmail [dot] com

Muchas Gracias !!

From a friend of mine, Beth Zare:

Dear Patty,

Don’t know if blogging about this here will help an oboist in Seattle:

For my musician friends, please read:
For my musician friends, a friend had her house burgled this weekend, and oboes and an english horn were stolen. Please keep you ear open. Details are: Loree Oboe CS 69, Loree Oboe PI 88, Rigoutat Riec English horn (don’t know the serial number yet–it wa…s my daughter’s). It’s possible someone in your or your acquaintances’ circle will be approached with this stuff. They also got reed tools, tuner, and the Renton Community Concert Band folder along with the South Cove Quintet folder.

If I get any more information I’ll be sure and update this!

Dallas police are calling for the public’s help identifying a pair of thieves with classical music taste.

Ok, so they might not dig classical music, but evidently they see the benefits of some instruments that create classical music.

Police issued a surveillance video of the boys at work at the Brook Mays Music Co. location along John Carpenter Freeway. The heist, according to police, occurred at 5 a.m., June 7.

The video shows one guy smashing the bottom half of a glass door — smart fellow because it would have been way more difficult had he smashed the top half — and both guys scurrying in and out with their ill-gotten gains.

RTWT

The video below shows the theft and then shows them attempting to pawn the instruments. Geesh!

Just received:

Apparently a local Oboe Student has these missing from a stolen car in Berkeley, Please keep an eye out and pass on to the Local Music Stores as well:
Loree Oboe with serial LB58 (borrow from her teacher)
Old mandolin in black hard case
IBM think pad computer
iTouch engraved
…Red ’93 Nissan Sentra

Keep your eyes open, and help a bassoonist whose instrument was stolen. Here’s the info I received:

STOLEN BASSOON ALERT: yesterday, the bassoon belonging to SF Symphony bassoonist, Steven Dibner, was stolen from his car, in his own driveway. The instrument was made by Benson Bell in Canada, and bears the serial number 34. The finish is cherry red, and it has the short bass joint with the long, seamless top joint, characteristic of all Bell bassoons.

I happened upon this blog entry and read about a lost — and I’m assuming now stolen — oboe. Keep your eyes open, oboe world. See if someone can locate this somewhere! Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of information. Here’s the conversation I had with the blogger (she’s in Canada):

oboeinsight.com said…
I just read this blog entry; if you like I can post the information at my oboe blog and people can look out for it. I’d need brand, serial number and anything else you have. SO sorry to read about this!
DECEMBER 8, 2010 2:29 PM

Becca said…
Really?! That would be great!!! It is a buffet crampon. I am not too sure about the serial number.. I THINK it’s BC4051.
Thank you so much!
DECEMBER 8, 2010 10:23 PM

Becca said…
also.. it was lost saturday evening Dec. 4th in lethbridge.
DECEMBER 8, 2010 10:24 PM

Gentle reminder: record the serial numbers of all of your instruments!

If you happen to see a Buffet Crampon oboe on eBay or at a pawn shop … ask for verification of ownership I guess … not sure if the serial number is helpful since she’s not positive about that. (If I get verification that she IS certain of it I’ll update this!)

And share this info, please.

Update I think the number above may be the model number rather than the serial number. I’ve asked the oboist and will post the serial number if she can provide it.

This just reported to me:

ATTENTION: 4 instruments were stolen from the 5th Ave Theatre. A Brannen-Cooper10K gold flute, a Burkart-Phelan piccolo, a Buffet Crampon R-13clarinet, and a Yanagisawa 991 alto sax. If anyone sees an instrument like any of those listed above on Craigslist, E-Bay, or in a pawn shop…or Music Store, please contact Dane Anderson @ 5th Ave Theater or the Seattle police immediately. Thanks!

Oboe Stolen
Lorée Royal Nr. NZ 13
Location: Station Barcelona Sants – Spain
Date: April 30 2010

Dear colleagues and friends,

Yesterday, April 30th 2010 at 14:20, my precious oboe and old friend, Lorée Royal NZ 13, was stolen inside train station Barcelona Sants. Please help me find back my instrument by sending this email to all your musical friends, here and abroad and if possible print this email and post it at your conservatory, shop, website, orchestra and music school. You would be doing me an enormous favor. If any of you are offered this oboe by a seller, please contact me urgently. Thank you very much.

Sincerely,
Christopher Bouwman – solo oboe Valencia Opera (Orquesta de la Comunitat Valenciana)
2nd prize winner Gillet Oboe competition 2009
Email: CBuilder [at] hotmail [dot] com
Telephone: 0034 671444326

Claire Garza’s viola stands for good and beauty. She used it to soothe patients in nursing homes and hospitals and to teach music to children.

Someone stole the viola Friday from her Swiss Avenue apartment in Old East Dallas. But maybe the burglar would have reconsidered if he had known how Garza employed the viola.

Garza, 27, said she thinks the thief came in through a locked apartment window. A violin and a DVD player also were stolen, she said.

But the viola, estimated to be worth $30,000, became the focal point.

Garza’s high school viola teacher had sold it to her, and she had used it to play more than 100 concerts in nursing homes and hospitals all over Dallas.

“It was a very special thing to have an instrument that used to belong to my teacher,” she said. “It was heartbreaking for me to have to tell him it got stolen.”

Garza plays for Texas Winds Musical Outreach, a group of professional musicians that tries to help people in the community. She also plays in the Richardson Symphony Orchestra and teaches young musicians through the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s Young Strings program, which provides free lessons and instruments to underprivileged first- through fifth-graders.

Garza graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and soon helped start a series of educational programs for at-risk children called the Charles Barr Concerts for Head Start. The series is named for her boyfriend, who was killed in a bicycle accident a few years ago.

Garza came to Texas after Barr’s mother, Catherine, offered her a job with Texas Winds.

Garza said the missing viola is precious to her. She just wants the thief to take care of it and return it.

“It was like my voice, and it’s gone now,” she said. “It’s such an unfortunate thing, because it was used to do such good, such uplifting things. It’s just wrong.”

Found here.

Local 6 just sent out a note about stolen instruments and more. No, not oboes. Not anything I play. But it’s still worth putting this out there. Everything was stolen from the trunk of the owner’s car.

IBANEZ ACOUSTIC/ELECTRIC GUITAR- EW20. A gorgeous, spalted maple
cutaway. S/N 1202SQO70331.

A CASE WITH 16 HARMONICAS- Including 6 Chromatics (the big ones with button/slider) mostly Hohner.

ARIA SOLID BODY ELECTRIC GUITAR – A beautiful deep-red finish with
gold hardware; hard-shell case.

NIKON D5000 DIGITAL SLR CAMERA- with AF-S Nikkor VR lens. S/N
16481229.

ROLAND AC90 ACOUSTIC CHORUS GUITAR AMP- Black, in padded case. S/N ZW23316 .

SHURE WIRELESS MIC SYSTEM- with transmitter, receiver and microphone

SHURE WIRELESS INSTRUMENT SYSTEM- with transmitter, receiver,
instrument cable (1/4inch)

BOSS DIGITAL CHROMATIC TUNER

KORG DIGITAL CHROMATIC TUNER

THREE SHURE SM58 MICROPHONES

1 SHURE SM57 MICROPHONE

VOX CRY-BABY WAH-WAH PEDAL

TWO ZOOM MULTI-EFFECTS PEDAL

REWARDS OFFERED -relative to item(s) recovered

I’m not listing his number on my website, but of course you can contact me if you hear anything about these. NONE of the items are covered by the owner’s insurance because they are used for professional purposes.

Which reminds me …
If you play professionally you need to have your instruments insured properly. Homeowner’s insurance will not cover them. If you have them insured by someone who does cover professionals be sure you understand how you are covered. (Some companies won’t cover them if they are stolen from a music locker, college office or room, or dorm. Some won’t cover them if they are stolen from you car but were not in the trunk.) If you don’t play professionally, you still need to make sure your homeowner’s insurance covers your instruments … and they probably won’t if you haven’t contacted them about owning them.

And yes, I insure my reed making equipment as well. You should too!

What easier place to look for valuable instruments, right?

Security at McGill University in Montreal is being stepped up after seven thefts of musical instruments from lockers in six weeks, officials said.

Most recently, a $40,000 viola was taken from the locker of student Alicia Bisha after someone picked the lock in the university’s Schulich School of Music building, The Gazette newspaper reported.

She told the newspaper the instrument was a high school gift from her concert viola-playing grandmother and she’d accept it back with no questions asked.

She said in case it were to turn up at an online sales portal, the viola has a registration number of JC9525 on the inside.

The other thefts have included an English horn, a saxophone, two stringed instruments and some woodwinds, the Gazette said.

McGill’s dean of music, Don McLean, said security measures have been stepped up but wouldn’t elaborate.

“I feel for the students, they develop a relationship with a specific instrument, a personal attachment and these thefts are a sense of violation,” he told the newspaper.

Read here.

A wayward wind instrument worth tens of thousands of dollars has been returned to the National Arts Centre in Ottawa after being found for sale on eBay.

A member of the NAC orchestra spotted the 1955 German-made Heckel contrabassoon on the online auction site and contacted police, said an Ottawa police news release Friday.

The instrument is worth between $60,000 and $100,000, and went missing between August and Oct. 17.

Police contacted the Montreal pawn shop that was selling the instrument, which was turned over to police.

Police said they believe the shop obtained the instrument from someone else, and no charges will be laid.

I love reading about found instruments. I’m trying to figure out, though, why the “went missing dates” are so spread … “between August and October 17″? Wow.

I read it here.