NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- This is the week country music fans mingle with the stars in Nashville at the CMA Festival and soak up all that is country music. But some treasured instruments at the Country Music Hall of Fame may not stay in the glass cases for long.

They were donated by a man accused of running a Ponzi scheme. Now the museum has to raise more than a million dollars to essentially buy what was supposed to be a gift.

Johnny Cash's guitar, Bill Monroe's mandolin and Mother Maybelle Carter's 1928 Gibson guitar have been displayed for years. The late Robert McLean donated money for the instruments but was later forced into bankruptcy after being accused of running a Ponzi-type scheme.

So now the museum is trying to raise $1.1 million to keep the sacred sets of strings where they are.

"It's really a duty that the Hall of Fame has, and I think it's really important to the city of Nashville that they need to be here; they don't need to be somewhere else," said Scott Siman. "This is where these guitars and mandolins need to be."

The museum has raised $680,000 so far. It has a couple of more years to raise the rest of the money.