The first theft occurred in 1919 in Vienna, when someone removed a double violin case containing the Gibson, another Cremonese violin, and several bows from his hotel room. The thief promptly offered the instruments for sale to a dealer at a very low cost, but the dealer's suspicions were and the instruments subsequently returned to Hubermann.
The second theft occurred in New York, in 1936. Hubermann was playing a concert at Carnegie Hall on his Guarneri, and when he returned to his dressing room, the Stradivari left there was gone. It turned up in 1987 when the widow of a cafe violinist offered the violin to Lloyd's of London. The violinist claimed to have bought the instrument in a pawn shop for a small fee at the time of the theft, and as I understand it, openly claimed to have a Stradivari violin for much of his life, but was never taken seriously.
Lloyd's was the owner of the violin, having insured it and paid the claim at the time of its loss. Extensive negotiations were required to return the violin (see the Dec. 1987 Strad magazine for an article by Charles Beare which describes the process). After restoration and display at the 1987 Cremona Stradivari exhibition, the violin was sold in early 1988 to Norbert Brainin, formerly the first violinist of the Amadeus Quartet.
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