Sharing this one on behalf of my boss' wife, as it was told to me after a few beers - fake names used just to prevent any confusion since it all sounded a little too perfect to be true.
As a young man, Grandpa Al came to Australia with nothing but a suitcase and a dream. In that suitcase was a
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stradivarius violin however, so he had that going for him. Skip forward a couple decades and Grandpa Al has become older and frailer and it's up to his youngest daughter Belle to look after him in his final years since everyone else has moved interstate.
When Grandpa Al finally passes most of the family hasn't spoken to him in months and despite having 5 children, only a few bother to show up to his funeral.
Now, what DOES get their attention is that stradivarius violin that he'd kept locked up tight. Probably worth millions, the rest of his estate consists of his humble abode, its contents and the land it sat on. Something like 100k all up and his will is a barebones matter saying that everything is to be split evenly between the 5 children.
Immediately, children who didn't bother to show up to the funeral are calling Belle and pestering her about the Violin which had been Grandpa Al's pride and joy but never specifically mentioned in the will or insured because he wasn't a banking sort of guy. Everyone insists they had been promised it verbally and within days Belle is being pestered by four different lawyers and urged to take her own due to the amount of money involved.
By the time the dust settles, the family that was once distant is now fractured, family members and their spouses have lied to each other, had screaming matches, etc etc. Four lawyers' fees taken out of the estate have reduced it down to a fraction of its meagre amount and the Stradivarius is finally retrieved and valued at... less than a grand.
Turns out it was a fake. Either Grandpa Al had been swindled back in his 20s or he had bought the thing more recently and just spun a very convincing tall tale without realising how much strife it would cause.
Long story short, most of the family still won't talk to each other and the fake violin is sitting in a dusty cupboard somewhere in Belle's new house.
