An employee at a pawn shop in Massachusetts almost made the purchase of a lifetime when he bought a $50 violin from a customer. He had no idea that the violin was "a Federico Gagliano hand-crafted and one-of-a-kind violin dating back to 1759." The violin is worth a staggering $250,000.
Unfortunately, for LBC Boutique and Loan the violin is worthless to them because it was stolen.
"We got a call from a detective from the Somerville Police Department," Dylan McDermitt of LBC Boutique and Loan told Fox25. "This particular [seller] had no criminal background history."
Police arrived and took the rare violin and returned it to the owner. McDermitt joked that the pawn shop is instituting a new policy to ensure employees don't buy stolen musical instruments in the future.
"We’re going to start asking the customers to play the violins to make sure that we know it’s theirs," McDermitt said.
Police are continuing to search for the suspect who stole the violin.