How to Lose, Get Back $500K Violin

(CBS)  Twenty-two-year-old Hahn-Bin, who is set to make his debut at Carnegie Hall this October, left his 184-year-old, $500,000 violin in a taxi in Manhattan on Sunday night. He was on his way home to Chinatown at 1:00 a.m. after a long day in the posh Hamptons, on Long Island, where he had just performed with famed violinist Itzhak Perlman.

Hahn-Bin said on "The Early Show" Wednesday losing the violin couldn't have come at a worse time.

"I was very, very tired. That's all I can say. I had come back from the Hamptons rehearsing and performing. ... I was exhausted."

Hahn-Bin, who practices eight hours a day, said he was devastated when he learned of the loss.

"I called the police immediately. They didn't believe me. They didn't know I'm having my debut on October 8. When I told them I left my $500,000 violin in the cab, they said, 'You mean, $5,000. ' "

However, after a night of panic, the Perlman protégé was reunited with his violin with the help of GPS technology, the New York Police Department and the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission, just 12 hours after he left it in the cab.

Hahn-Bin said he was amazed at how quickly the violin was recovered. He's promised a concert for the taxi driver who found it.

[azure13]

How stupid is it that ANY violin is worth 500K? Just goes to show how ridiculous we humans are...

[wtcmedic911]

i cannot imagine being so absent minded. kind of like forgetting and leaving the wife in the cab. hmmmm wishful dream..... lol

[DaVicar5]

I remember a few years ago when Yo Yo Ma left a $1.5Million dollar Cello in the trunk of a cab, and I just wonder how these people lose their sense of value for their posessions?
If I owned ANYTHING that was worth a half-millions dollars, you can Gosh-Dang Gar un Tee that I would know WHERE it was, every minute of every day!