I've been helping out at Norm's Music in the afternoons while the back-to-school rush is on. Norm called this morning and said there was no need to come in today. His store was burgled last night. I dropped by anyway.

The scene was profound in the sense of the robber's (or robbers') knowledge of luthiery. They cleaned out the high-end violins and guitars. The cheap stuff was left behind. Most revealing was that he/she/they had gone through drawers full of violin bows and grabbed three drawers containing all the $1000 and up bows - and left behind the $49 and $150 bows. Your average thief isn't going to know the difference. There are no brand names to look at. Most did not have price tags. You have to be not just a violin enthusiast, but a violin expert to pick these out of a crowd. Similiar story on the violins themselves. Somebody knew exactly what they were after, and which instruments had high-end value. A handful of high end guitars. These were branded and knowledge of what's valuable is pretty widepsread so that wasn't surprising. But the violins were the real target, and the thief or thieves have knowledge approaching the 'expert' category. For instance I know a lot about violins, but not enough to have pulled this off.

Somewhere (probably in this area) is a highly knowledgeable violin scoundrel. On the bright side, it's a small world. There are only a handful of people with this kind of knowledge.