Many of us have been there: a concern that our beloved instruments might be stolen from us by unscrupulous thieves. For a musician there is perhaps nothing as depressing as having that concern realized.
Now why people steal others’ stuff is of course quite complicated, and often related to a need to feed an addiction of one kind or another. The stolen objects are often pawned, advertised through online sites like Craigslist, or sold for pennies on the dollar through street vendors in major urban centers.
When it comes to musical instruments, they don’t have nearly the same mass appeal as smaller trinkets or home electronics, so a thief might need to resort to more extreme means to dispose of them. Case in point, the disposition of a Selmer Mark VI that was sold for scrap metal in Forks Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania.
According to an article in the June 26, 2015 edition of lehighvalleylive.com, two thieves broke into a numerous homes and stole approximately $20,000 worth of stuff. Included in those thefts was a Selmer Mark VI saxophone, which was apparently valued at $8,000.
Mark VI Was Sold For Scrap Metal
While the thieves might have pawned the jewellery, the 23-year-old female thief, Jessica Christian, admitted to selling the Selmer for scrap metal. 
I don’t know about you, but the thought of having any of my babies sold for scrap metal is worse than the thought of having them in the hands in another musician. My instruments are insured, and as much as I don’t want any of them stolen, if they were being used by someone, at least they would still being making music, as opposed to turned into something like this…
Source: jacmitc on eBay.com
Or this…
Source: dwayne on eBay.com
Or even worse, something like this…
Source: ArtifactsNRelics on etsy.com
There’s no word on what the scrap metal dealer did with the Selmer. I don’t imagine that he/she was stupid enough to crush it.
The Internet makes it impossible for anyone to not know what they have on their hands. I wonder if it ended up for sale on eBay, Craigslist, or some other classified listing. 
This has always been a huge fear of mine. My biggest fear is that, if a thief stole and tried to sell/pawn off my horn, the fact that it was such an obscure mechanism, that no one would e willing to give them much for it, and it would be trashed or sold for scrap. My hope, is that if they tried to sell it, someone would recognize its significance and report it in time for the thief to be caught and my horn recovered.
Hi there Daniel. Sorry in my delay in replying. I’ve not been well, and am just trying to get caught up on the comments.
Having your horn stolen would be devastating. If you were unable to get it back, it’s not like you can just walk into any music store, play-test a bunch, and pick out one the one you like the sound of best. The process you have to go through is much more involved and time consuming. Your return to being a working sax player would be much longer than for the rest of us.
Fingers crossed that this will never happen to you!
When I was young in the early 60s or so I saw a truck go by with a large trailer piled with scrap containing at least thirty band instruments. Who knows what brand instruments were lost.
We can only hope that they were student model instrument!
During WWII many brass instruments were turned in for the war effort. I’m sure a great many instruments were lost during that period. I don’t which countries besides the US did this, but I’m guessing that they weren’t alone.