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Re: Instrument Theft

To: brass-band@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Instrument Theft
From: Tom Sheridan <tom_s@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 09:21:45 GMT
Cc: tom_s@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Priority: low
Reply-to: brass-band@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Andy Wooler wrote:
>I posted a note a while back re the theft of a euphonium. Readers may be
>interested to learn that an instrument has been recovered. However, the
>serial no has been obliterated and the instrument now has the current
>"owner"s name engraved on the tuning slides! Suffice to say, the boys in
>blue have had to return it to the "owner".

>Morals of this sad story 1) put some other additional identification on the
>instrument (perhaps inside the bell) moral 2) Crime does appear to pay!

Are you *sure* there is no way to identify the instrument?  Unless the 
section bearing the serial number has been cut out and replaced with new 
material, there might still be ways to expose the serial number which has 
been mechanically removed from the surface.   I'm sure there must be a 
specialist or two in the brass band world willing to offer advice.  Look 
at it this way: if it was the number on a gun used in a presidential 
assassination, they'd *certainly* find a way to recover it.  I'm no 
metallurgist, but I have a few ideas myself. 

Stamping a number must surely change both the local grain structure of the 
metal, and the local density of crystallographic defects. These changes 
will probably go very deep into, if not right through, the brass. There 
are a number of scientific techniques to show up local grain structure and 
defect density, such as chemical etching & staining, and x-ray & radioactive 
particle imaging.  There are various specialised forms of optical microscopy 
and digital image processing that could perhaps be applied to the problem as 
well.  

Obviously if you had to pay the full cost for the time of a specialist to 
develop suitable techniques, it would be uneconomic. Perhaps a professor 
or lecturer at a university could be persuaded that it would be an ideal 
exercise for postgrad or even undergrad metallurgy, physics, chemistry or 
materials science students.  

The chances are that a practical technique might be very simple to use. 
The problem is the effort and knowledge required to develop the technique 
in the first place.  Maybe an insurance company would sponsor some of the 
development costs. 

I'm sure that once a reliable technique was developed, it could be used in 
many other areas: cars, motorbikes and bikes and guns all have stamped 
serial numbers, for a start.  It may even be the case that forensic tests 
are already available, but the stout fellows of your local constabulary don't 
know.

Tom Sheridan
Percussionist, Failsworth Band
Manchester UK  

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