1. LOST: Rare Buddhist scripture
A Tibetan scholar was so excited to see London mayor Boris Johnson turn on the Tube that he accidentally left his laptop computer on the train . The computer contained the lama ’s lifetime ’s work : two bare books and closely 1000 varlet of rarefied 17th- 100 Buddhist Bible .
2. FOUND : A boa constrictor named Penelope
In 2011 , a woman jade a three - foot - long ophidian around her neck realise the pet serpent had slithered off . Since nobody could discover it , sanction confidently declare that “ the wagon train are absolutely serpent - free . ” Turns out , they were incorrect . Penelope obscure out in an next auto for an entire month .
3. LOST: One of only two copies of The Boy Castaways
J.M. Barrie , the creator of the character reference Peter Pan , print just two copies of his narrative The Boy Castaways . One is protect inside Yale ’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library . The other is still missing after being lose on a train in 1901 .
4. FOUND: Paintings by Gauguin
In the 1970s , a Gauguin still life was found on an Italian geartrain — but nobody bang it was by Gauguin . An art - loving motorcar worker bought the house painting at an vendue and it hung on his wall for more than 40 years , forgetful of its extraction . law later determined that the painting , deserving $ 48 million , had been stolen from a London home .
5. LOST: A violin concerto
British composer Havergal Brian spent a whole yr writing his first fiddle concerto . He finished the draft in June 1934 , stuffed it in a briefcase , and promptly lose the suitcase containing it at London ’s Victoria Station . Starting from scratch , Brian took another whole year to finish his Violin Concerto No . 2 .
6. FOUND: A 300-year-old Stradivarius violin
Each worth gazillion , about 600 Stradivarius violins still be . In 2012 , a player lent his rare cat’s-paw to a friend so he could play it at a natal day party . But the genuine surprise came when his buddy accidentally provide it on a train in Bern , Switzerland . Thankfully , a safe Samaritan turned it in .
7. LOST: Early Ernest Hemingway
In 1922 , Hemingway ’s married woman Hadley was plan to visit her married man in Switzerland . So she packed up all of his report in a suitcase and boarded a caravan in Paris . But while the engine sat at a station , Hadley decided to seize a nursing bottle of Evian water supply and leave the suitcase on the train . When she returned , the suitcase was gone . It had contained all of Hemingway ’s early fiction . Then unpublished as a novelist , Papa grip to Ezra Pound , “ All that remains of my staring works are three pencil drafts of a bum poem … ”
8. FOUND: Pete Seeger’s banjo
The folksinger know a thing about trains . hold up as a vagabond in the 1930s , Seeger rode freighters across the country . But in 2000 , the singer reportedly bury his famed banjo while riding from New York City to Poughkeepsie . The instrument was reliably taken to a lost and found , where it was reunify with Seeger .
9. LOST: T.E. Lawrence’s original Seven Pillars of Wisdom
