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It was in the wee hours following St. Patrick’s Day when longtime Vancouver busker Shawn Whittle fell asleep on the SkyTrain ride home with his friend’s most prized possession, a French violin from the early 1900s.

But when Whittle, 32, who had fiddled late into the night for crowds downtown, was woken by an announcement that the train was arriving at King George station he noticed the violin, his wallet and phone were gone.

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“I’m heartbroken,” he told Postmedia. “I had the fiddle case tucked under my feet sitting alone on a pretty much empty train, and my wallet and phone were in different inner pockets of my vest.”

In the week since, Whittle has been scrambling to locate the instrument, which he says is irreplaceable.

“The thing that makes this all the worse is this isn’t even my fiddle — a dear friend loaned it to me to play for a while as I’m saving up to get my main player fixed up.”

The self-taught musician has been following in the footsteps of his friend, who is a violinist in Winnipeg. The violinist would bring her old violins, cases and bows and extra cash she made from busking to a luthier she knew so she could trade up.

“He’d upgrade her to something better until eventually she got this absolutely beautiful violin that was made between 1916 and 1918. It has the richest low end I’ve ever heard in a fiddle and is just absolutely gorgeous to play,” said Whittle.

The violin was kept in a tattered leather case with a red interior. It has a Fom Kun style shoulder rest instead of a chin rest, and one of two bows has a missing pearl inlay on one side of the frog. Its case also contains a circular block of rosin glued to a piece of white fabric and a rubber bridge mute.

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On the night of the violin’s disappearance, Whittle had decided to work late, hoping to make enough cash from passersby to cover his rent by playing Celtic-style fiddle tunes, most of which were improvised on the spot.

Whittle has been busking for more than 15 years, since he was a teenager, starting with soup cans played like a washboard alongside makeshift percussion instruments such as buckets and pots.

“I eventually got into violin to challenge myself musically, and it’s the first tuned instrument I learned to play. This violin has been to over 13 countries with (my friend) and I can’t stomach that I am the end of its journey.

“I’ve called pretty much all of the pawn shops in the Lower Mainland, as well as music shops and luthiers that I could find looking for it,” Whittle said.

He also reported the theft to Vancouver Police. If found, the violin can be returned anonymously to police by contacting the Vancouver Police at its non-emergency line (604-717-3321) and citing incident number 2024-915953.

“I have a small reward I can offer — no questions asked,” Whittle said. “If you bought it from someone at the market downtown, I’ll cover that cost as well.”

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sgrochowski@postmedia.com

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