MUSIC

Once again, a deal that seemed too good to be true was : Days after a homeless person sold him what looked like a pretty nice bassoon for $3 and a pack of cigarettes, Mark Mavris--owner of a luggage and gift shop in Manhattan--tracked down the owner, Cyrus Segal, who informed Mavris on Saturday that the instrument was actually worth $15,000. Segal, a bassoonist with the New York City Opera, was standing outside Lincoln Center on Wednesday when the instrument was snatched, New York City police said. But it’s Mavris who gets the save in the story: Segal’s wife, Myra, said musician friends of the Segals’ said Mavris had been “stopping musicians on the street and asking them” if they knew a bassoonist who’d lost his or her instrument.