This rare 400-year-old Shimpaku juniper was due to be entered in a Japanese competition this month

Theft of anything is always shocking and doubly so when the missing objects are irreplaceable, one of a kind living items. When and if they are ever found, missing bonsai might be badly damaged or even dead. And the chances of ever finding them are often slim

Here’s an except from  our source WENY News (courtesy of  Eugene Sekulow) …
“A bonsai thief has stolen seven… trees worth at least 13 million yen ($118,000)* from a garden space in Saitama prefecture near Tokyo.

“The loot included a rare 400-year-old shimpaku tree, a star of the bonsai world, which was due to be entered in a Japanese… competition this month…” 

“The prize shimpaku alone was worth over 10 million yen ($90,000), according to Fuyumi Iimura, wife of the bonsai master who crafted the trees.”

Here’s a link to rest of the article and here’s a google link to several pages of articles on stolen bonsai.

*I’m always a little wary of precise value placed on bonsai (especially if insurance claims are about to be filed). No bonsai has a fixed value. At least until someone buys it. When that happens, you could say the purchase price is  the tree’s value at that moment