Violins_Violos

For the most part any information pertinant to violins is also

relevant to the viola, cello and the bass violin. They were all built

by the same luthiers at the same time. The Violin hasn't changed

much since Andrea Amati, Gasparo daSalo or Gasparo

Duiffopruggar, depending on whose story you believe perfected it

way back sometime in the mid to late 16th century. With the

possible exception of prices, back then Royalty was the number

one purchaser of these works of art. Today you don't necessarily

have to be wealthy or a relative of the King or Queen or a member

of the royal court to afford one. That is of course unless you want

to own certain specific specimens, say Stradivari's, then you will

probably need above average means. The Stradivari Society claims

that the value of the 650 known surviving Stradvari instruments has

tripled since 1990. That is a believable estimate as all other

instruments have also increased substantially in value as well.

For example stepping back to a couple of auctions in London, in

1990 “The Mendelsohn” sold for $1,776,940.00 and “The

Kreutzer” sold in1998 for $1,543,240.62 . Comparing those to two

fairly recent examples of Stradivarius sold at auction the first in

April of 2005 “The Lady Tenant” sold at Christie's Auction House

at New York for a then record price of $2,032,000. Only to be

topped 13 months later in May 2006 when the Stradivarius “The

Hammer” sold for $3,544,000 at auction. June 21, 2011. I believe

the current auction record is now held by Tarisio Auctions who

sold “The Lady Blunt” for charity to an anonymous bidder for

$15,969,876.00. Historically Strads that change owners privately

bring considerably higher prices than those sold at auction. With

the newest record auction price being just shy of 16 million dollars

it remains to be seen if that trend will continue.

An interesting thing to consider from an investors point of view is

that although Stradivarius violins are seemingly the most valuable of

instruments they are by no means the rarest as far as numbers go.

Some of the fine violins by Mr. Stradivarius' competition of old as

well as some later 1st tier violin makers still bring hundreds of

thousands of dollars. A short list includes Giuseppe Guarneri,

Annabale Fagnola, Nicolo Amati, Stefano Scarampella, Lorenzo

Venapane, Francesco Ruggieri, Batista Ceruti's, Vincenzo

Panorma, Jean Baptiste Vuillaume, Francois Pique.

There are quite a few other violin makers on the 2nd and 3rd tiers

that are investment worthy instruments ranging in price from $40

thousand to $100 thousand dollars. The bottom of the list is

comprised by emerging luthiers who are just now hitting their stride

so to speak with 100% finely hand crafted instruments valued at

$20 thousand to $40 thousand dollars. Collecting and investing in

violins is truly a far deeper subject than we could ever hope to do

justice to if we devoted this whole website to the subject. Just know

this, the art of the violin didn't start and stop with Antonio

Stradivari.