You asked for it...

Back in January of 2002, like a dumbass, or maybe because of my Great Plains upbringing and subsequent trust in others, I parked my Civic in the neighborhood at work and left the tuba in its case in the back; I was planning to use it at a tuba conference later that day.

Sometime that morning, I found out that it got stolen. One of my coworkers said that he was walking on that block, heard the sound of breaking glass, and turned to see three guys dragging the horn, case and all, out the driver's door and into their Escort. And, yup, they got away.

I filed a report with the police, giving them the brand, model, and serial numbers of the horn (one on the valve casing, another on the mouthpiece receiver), and a list of the stuff that was also in the case. I didn't hear anything from them -- disappointing since it was over $6000 of stuff altogether, but not surprising since there are always worse things happening here than tuba thefts. Thank goodness I don't use that instrument at work, though.

I also put the word out on Tubenet, a tuba & euphonium message board that I frequented, which reached fellow players around the world. I told them everything that I told the cops, so they knew what to keep an eye out for.

About a month later, one morning towards the end of preseason training in Arizona, I was told that one of the players in one of the DC bands found the horn on eBay.

This was cool -- one of the Tubenet members in Europe was browsing eBay and came across the horn, which had been posted no more than half an hour before. He posted the listing on Tubenet and said, "Remember that stolen tuba? I think this is it -- can someone check with Leland [me] about it?" Within another couple hours, other "Tubenetters" dug up the info that I gave and contacted eBay about the auction. When I called home to tell my mom and have her check (we didn't have access to a computer at the time), she looked for the listing and quietly exclaimed, in the way that my mom does when she knows what she's looking at, "Oh my God... This is it."

Even before my mom could contact them, the auction got pulled -- the other guys from Tubenet got to it first and had it taken down. By the end of the morning, and before my cell phone battery ran out, I arranged for the cops to go to the shop and retrieve it, and for one of our guys back in DC to pick it up and bring it home.

It was listed by a pawn shop in Prince George's County, across the river from DC. To legally take it back, the PG County cops had to get it, formally hand it over to DC police, and it was then given to us. They did all that in the parking lot at the shop, so it was nice and quick. Our guy called me later to tell me about the pickup and said, "Yup, it's safe and sound, out in my car.."

The shop paid the thieves five hundred bucks for it. The auction had a Buy It Now price of $5600, which was right about market value. Their usual policy was to wait for thirty days before posting pawned goods online, which explained the month-long wait. And, yes, PG County has probably the worst crime reputation around here.

Here's the threads at the old Tubenet BBS:
http://www.chisham.com/tips/bbs/jan2...ges/83076.html
http://www.chisham.com/tips/bbs/feb2...ges/86767.html

What a day that was. The stickers that were on the case had been torn off (not all of the United Airlines stickers would come off, though), and everything was still in the case -- tuner, metronome, cleaning kit, and four mouthpieces in another case. There were no dents in the horn (no new ones, anyway ), but there were smudges, and even the tuning slides were in the same positions I had left them.