The exchange between the two men happened on a windy boulevard shortly before 5 p.m.

The first, a professional violinist without a violin.

The second, an animal rescue investigator turned treasure hunter carrying an oblong leather case in his hand.

Within moments the deal was done. Hands were shaken, one man walked away $1,000 the richer. The other clutched his newly retrieved 1972 Ansaldo Poggi beneath his chin and serenaded passers-by with that old familiar tune, So Happy Together by The Turtles.

But somewhere, beyond the reach of the notes vibrating off the violinist's bow, a lone bag lady wandered, not knowing how close she had come to a $1,000 reward.

Things couldn't have turned out better for Jim Wallenberg, a veteran violinist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Wallenberg lost the $77,000 violin on Saturday when he left it at the streetcar shelter at Queens Quay and Spadina and then boarded a streetcar bound for Union Station.

Unable to find the violin upon his return to the shelter, he offered a reward for its safe return.

What he didn't know was that a bag lady, well known among Queens Quay Blvd. residents as a loud woman with a shopping cart filled with bottles, bags and licence plates, had picked up the violin, placed it in her cart and carried on down the street.

On Monday, after hearing of the reward, Wayne Wulff, a local animal rescue investigator, spotted the violin case in the bag lady's cart and called Wallenberg to confirm the reward.

"I said: `I might have seen a case in a homeless person's cart in the area. I don't know if it's a violin case, it's sort of a long brown oblong case,'" Wulff recounted moments after the handover.

"He said, `Oh my god, can you go and find this lady or do what you can to track her down?'"

Knowing for the first time of the total amount of the reward, Wulff went looking again for the bag lady, finally catching up with her in a park at the south corner of Bathurst St. and Queens Quay Blvd. and began bartering for the violin.

"I told her: `That case there belongs to a friend of mine and I'm willing to give you everything I have,'" Wulff said.

Everything Wulff had amounted to $35 and a shiny silver ring worth no more than $40, which he exchanged with the lady – whom he described as "very angry" – for the violin.

Then he called Wallenberg back to announce that he had retrieved the instrument and the two men set a time and place for the exchange.

Neither Wulff nor Wallenberg seemed terribly bothered by the absence of the bag lady from the scene of the exchange.

"I don't think she was robbed of $1,000," said Wallenberg, adding he was extremely relieved to have the 36-year-old violin that had once belonged to his mother back in his possession.

"She took the violin and kept it for herself and didn't contact me. She could have contacted me, she could have left it there, but maybe she didn't know what it was and might have thought that it was up for grabs. If she had contacted me and said: `I'm so and so and I've found this violin,' I would have given her the $1,000."

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Wulff, who didn't tell the woman about the reward money before cutting the deal for a fist full of dollars and a shiny ring, said she wouldn't have understood what he was saying had he told her the value of what was resting in her cart.

"There was obviously a problem with communicating with her. She's constantly talking to herself, so I don't think she understood the magnitude of what was in the case," Wulff said.

Wulff is adamant that he did what he had to to get the violin back safely, but said he would consider giving a larger portion of the $1,000 to the bag lady if he sees her again. In the meantime, he's planning to put the money toward a trip to Las Vegas.