Greetings All,
I’m curious who here has experienced theft of their bonsai?
I’m located in SF and this week I recently had a 30+ year old Itoigawa on its own roots stolen out of my garden. The juniper was a very good tree (20" tall, nice ribbon with bottom half carved) and as such I had placed it in a appropriately expensive pot (unknown potter but dark down with red slip around). It was recently styled (100%, including 18 gage) and while I don’t have a photo it was very dear to me.
Just curious if others have experienced this or if you’ve noticed it for sale.
Many thanks,
Best
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This is pretty awful! So sorry about your loss 
I guess anything valuable should be documented and tracked in case it’ll appear anywhere ‘for sale’ tough to do so with dearest trees except taking photo. Shame you don’t have one - could post it to any bonsai forum, side etc. and there would be some hope. Really sorry to read your post…
This couldn’t be done by anyone but someone disrespectful to this art and also to work and effort an enthusiast like you put into it.
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One of my mentors, Tak Yamaura, had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of specimen trees stolen from his garden a few years back. Priceless trees to speak honestly, but from a business standpoint, a huge financial loss. Here’s a link to a news article about it. It devastated him and he actually ended up closing that garden down soon after.
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I have several of Tak’s trees and am very happy to report that he has reopened in a new location. This time with a very unfriendly guard dog! He’s a great resource here and I’m glad that he’s decided to start over.
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Yeah he’s been open about two months now. I spent many days there this summer. That’s nice to see a local guy on here.
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