I won this violin case on Ebay. When I got it it had been restored, and there was a plush, kind of fuzzy lining in it, but without any forms to hold the violin still, so I decided to put a better lining inside to hold my violin. When I pulled it out, there was writing under the liner. One was a list of old faded family names. I looked them up online and found that the family had lived in the mid to late 1800's. I kinda felt like their descendants should at least know the case existed, so I posted on a genealogy forum and that is how the descendant found me. She was very nice and she just asked me to let her know if I ever should decide to part with it. I told her I felt it belonged with her family and we just needed to find an equal replacement for me and she could have this one.
It is the second set of writing where things really take an interesting turn. Inside the case was written a note that said "This old fiddle case restored by Ken (surname) the name of a town, and then a series of numbers. I did a little more detective work and I figured out that this was an old-style phone number where they just used the last digits. So I looked up the town and that number and found a lady with the same last name as Ken. I figured that Ken was hoping someone would find this and call someday, so I called.
As it turned out, the lady was Ken's widow. Not that long after he restored the violin case, he was killed in an accident. He was an emergency worker and he was swept away in a river on the way to a rescue. He never told his wife that he had put the message inside the violin case. She said he must have seen the list of childrens names and decided to do it. She said it would be just like him to do something like this. The she asked me to keep what he started going and to write my story of how I came by the violin inside the case. I did that and when I put the liner inside, I left is loose so that the writing wouldn't be harmed.
So now it is time for me to send the violin case home. I told the lady it will be going to that it is her turn to write the end of the story inside the case.
Now I just need to find one that is as nice as this and to try for it not to be too expensive. Some of these get really ridiculous. I paid somewhere over $100 for it, but less than $200 as I recall and I always felt that it was an exceptionally good buy. I expect it may cost a couple hundred to get an equal replacement, but I've seen them sell for a lot more, although I think if we do some hunting we can locate a nice one at a reasonable price.
