A century-old violin worth approximately $100,000 belonging to a Michigan City, Ind. musician was reported stolen a week ago and found by police in a pawn shop Saturday.

Violinist Nicolas Orbovich of Michigan City, Ind. Reported his violin had been stolen from the back of his car a week ago. He said the instrument had been made in 1892 by Jerome Squier in Boston and worth an estimated $100,000 because of its superior sound quality, reports the Chicago Tribune.

“It's got this tremendous balance of different characteristics,” Orbovich, 42, a violinist with the South Bend Symphony Orchestra, told the Tribune. “You don't want a violin that has too much 'brightness,' or what you might call stridence or tinniness. And you don't want it too mellow either. You don't want it too much either way.”

Orbovich reported the instrument stolen from his car Nov. 17. He had left his car unlocked in a Wal-Mart parking lot for about five minutes; upon return, his instrument was missing. At the time, he likened the theft to “losing an immediate family member,” reports the Tribune.

He had had the violin for nearly a quarter of a century; he bought it in 1985 when he was a student at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, for a modest $2,000 that was nevertheless an effort for him. It remained his only violin. It had additional sentimental value as a professor of his had found the instrument in a Boston violin shop.

The Tribune reports that the violin, whose value had risen over time because the quality of its sound had improved, was recovered by Michigan City police with the help of a Lake Station, Ind., pawn shop.

Orbovich is the founder of the Michigan City Chamber Music Festival; he has also performed with the Elgin Symphony, the Chicago Sinfonietta and the Illinois Philharmonic.