A concert violinist has been reunited with the rare Scarampella violin that disappeared from his side after he dozed off at a Brooklyn Heights subway station.

World-renowned experimental violinist Thomas Chiu said he picked up the violin at about 10 p.m. Tuesday night after Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials informed him it was returned to the lost and found at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station in southern Brooklyn.

“I was overjoyed,” Mr. Chiu said yesterday while relaxing at a holiday party with friends. “A lot of people were very thankful.”

While Mr. Chiu said he wasn’t sure how much the violin is worth, a violin dealer, Peter Zaret & Sons Violins, is selling a certified Stefano Scarampella violin manufactured in 1903 for $125,000. Other Scarampella violins, which are renowned for their durability and quality, have recently sold at auction for between $75,000 and $100,000.

Built by famed Italian craftsman Stefano Scarampella in the early 20th century, the violin went missing June 27 after Mr. Chiu fell asleep at the Clark Street subway station in Brooklyn Heights.

A backpack belonging to Mr. Chiu that disappeared during the same incident was also returned.

Inside the bag was a violin bow that Mr. Chiu has used since childhood, he told the Associated Press.

He said he has been playing the irreplaceable violin, which originally belonged to his parents, for the past 13 years.

Mr. Chiu, who holds a degree in music from the Juilliard School and a degree in chemistry from Yale University, has collaborated with a diverse group of famous composers, including Oliver Lake, Dean Drummond, and Virko Bailey.

In the 1990s, Mr. Chiu formed the Flux Quartet. The group has played concerts at the Library of Congress and Carnegie Hall. This coming year, the Flux Quartet has been scooped up for residencies at Wesleyan University and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton.

The group was named partly in homage to the Fluxus art movement of the 1960s, which was created “for all people with embracing ‘anything goes’ spirit,” according to the group’s Web site.

Mr. Chiu said he was offering a reward for the return of the violin, but was not informed by Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials who had brought it to the Coney Island station.

A spokeswoman for New York City Transit, Deidre Parker, said she couldn’t confirm who had returned the violin or if it was returned at all, because the lost and found units for the agency were closed for the July 4 holiday.

When Mr. Chiu returned home with the prized violin on Tuesday night, he wasn’t able to give the instrument a thorough inspection, he said. However, he said he was delighted to find only minor damage when he gave it a detailed examination under lights yesterday morning.

“Except for a tiny scratch, it was undamaged,” Mr. Chiu said.

The night the violin disappeared, Mr. Chiu was returning home from a concert he had played about a half-mile away from the subway station at Clark Street in Brooklyn Heights. The heat and humidity that evening caused him to fall into a light sleep on a bench as he waited for a train, Mr. Chiu told several press outlets. When he woke up, the violin and his backpack were gone.

Mr. Chiu reported the theft to the New York City Police Department, which released a bulletin with information about the violin and a photo on Tuesday, asking anyone with knowledge of the violin’s whereabouts to call the department’s crime stoppers hotline. Mr. Chiu also released his phone number to be published in several newspapers.