Selling a 300-Year-Old Cello | Hacker News Reader

Selling a 300-Year-Old Cello

nytimes.com

42 pointspg23 comments

This is a bit of an aside from the article but I am an antique pocket watch collector. I have dozens of watches over 100 years old and a few in the 250 year range. The obvious first thought is to say I 'own' those watches. However, when you have an object of that age in your hand, and you really consider its age, how many other people have cherished it for their lifetime, and that it will probably exist long after I am forgotten, you realize that you're really just the next temporary caretaker. For me anyhow it puts things into some perspective.

http://patekwatch.blogspot.com/2011/05/patek-philippe-ad-ref...

http://patekwatch.blogspot.com/2011/11/patek-philippe-calatr...

Brilliant! Thank you, hadn't seen those before.

For the love of God, do NOT let the buyer use Paypal.

Old string instruments get pretty insane in price. My old teacher plays on a cello that's worth ~$1 million, and interestingly enough, he got a group of 10 investors to each put down $100k (not unlike angel investing I suppose). It's win-win: the instrument is pretty much guaranteed to appreciate in value, especially with a serious artist performing on it, and the artist gets to play on a instrument that doesn't hold them back in terms of expressiveness/tone quality.

pretty much guaranteed to appreciate in value

Well, that's not how an efficient market behaves. But then this isn't an efficient market. It's a market with gigantic...gigantic...inefficiency. What price would I put on a strad? 500 dollars maybe. After all, it sounds about as good as other 500 dollar violins, worse for wear and tear.

At some point, the evaluation of real value and the romanticism of history are going to collide. This is more common in art, where the name "Picasso" out-values all the beauty that man ever produced. You can buy many thousands of prints for the price of single original. Why? Romance.

124 thousand pounds:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist%27s_shit

This is like saying that a $100 bill is worth no more than it's "real value": the value of a quarter sheet of paper.

Provenance, rarity, and psychology play a significant part in the value of any object. What's worth $500 to you is (apparently) worth many millions to others. If you ever find yourself on the receiving end of a genuine Stradivari, please let me know -- I will gladly purchase it from you for your perceived value.

You're pretty much completely wrong.

1.) String instruments (possibly others too? I've no idea) generally improve by being skilfully played, a cello that has been played for a long time by Yo Yo Ma will actually be better than it was before he played it.

2.) As with any piece of art, or antique, age is a factor, and as such instruments appreciating in value as time goes on is pretty understandable.

3.) It's exactly how an efficient market behaves - items are valued at what people are willing to pay for them. That's how markets always work.

"1.) String instruments (possibly others too? I've no idea) generally improve by being skilfully played, a cello that has been played for a long time by Yo Yo Ma will actually be better than it was before he played it."

Do you have any sources for this? I've never heard this before.

It's easy to imagine how unskilled players could make an instrument worse, but it's hard for me to imagine how it would work the other way. Is it really related to the skill-level of the player, or are skilled player just more likely to care for the instrument properly?

I'm not trying to start an argument, I'm just genuinely curious...

There has been a lot of research into how instruments change by being played; nobody completely understands the mechanisms involved, but it is clear that there are changes in the crystallization of the varnish which affect the sound. Any good violinist can tell you that after an instrument hasn't been played for a while, it takes a few months of playing -- the louder the better -- before it will start to "speak" properly.

Do you know of any papers or articles you could point me to? The only thing I could find was this article: http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/powerhousetwins.html

It sounds like an interesting experiment, but probably needs more time to really provide solid data. At the time the article was written (2005) the two violins were only three years old and the results were inconclusive. It would be interesting to hear if they've done any follow-ups.

I don't have a source but I did play violin for a bunch of years growing up...the wood of the instrument (in layman's terms) gets "used" to a certain set of tones (scales with specific ratios between them). When this set of tones is as accurate as possible the wood (and varnish etc.) literally gets broken in. It's not uncommon to leave violins on top of well tuned pianos while people play them to break them in as well.

With a cello or a violin a better player will play the scales more accurately, more consistently, and usually (though not always), simply more. All of these contribute to the wood sounding better.

Not that this should necessarily be the final word on the matter, but a recent controlled study suggested that even experienced players can't distinguish old from new violins:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/01/02/1114999109

It's an interesting study, but it's worth noting that it wasn't necessarily a great study, only 3 (I think) "old" violins were used, and performers actually bond with their instruments, you'd expect a considerably different playing experience after you've been using a single instrument for a while and got to know it fully. Of course, this doesn't mean their results were incorrect, just that they weren't entirely conclusive.

Ultimately you wouldn't expect violinists to be able to tell the difference between old and new, just good and bad. It would be astonishing if every single old violin was better than every single new one. So other than the fact that price may not always corrolate with quality (what else is new, this happens in any market, from computers to cars to clothes), I'm not sure if it means that much.

There's actually an old story I love, that afaik isn't true. A concert violinist got so tired of people constantly praising his stradivarius rather than him for his performances that one day he played an entire concert with a fake, a copy of his strad. The audience of course had no idea, and went mad for him at the end, then he put the violin on the floor and jumped up and down on it, before giving a speech about his point.

This phenomenon is well-known among Fender Stratocasters. The guitars which have been played for years (e.g., a country musician played it every night for 20 years) are distinctly different (feel different, play different, sound different).

I would never believe it myself had I not personally experienced it many times. Explanations are completely lacking, so it's just a strange phenomenon but there's no dispute about its existence among pro players.

My daughter plays the cello, and the shop where she gets it repaired has a number of moderately expensive instruments of all kinds.

The shop owner has various artists who come by just to play the instrument, first for their own enjoyment at using a fine instrument, and secondly as a favor to the shop owner as playing of the instrument keeps it in good shape.

I don't, but will have a look around in the morning as I'm about to head to bed (UK time).

My source is the opinion of numerous music professionals, I first heard it at a young age from my cello teacher (a former concert cellist), and since then from a number of high-level professional cellists and violinists.

That said, it's possible I was wrong to think that it is the case for ancient instruments such as strads, it might only be the case for younger instruments.

I don't think it's anything to do with caring for instruments, but actually a case of the way it is played.

I'll get back to you, hopefully!

Thanks! I'd be interested to read anything you have.

I just started playing violin about a month ago, so it piqued my interest.

Further to your point I believe there is some accounting trick that makes musical instruments good vehicles for tax deferral. It has to do with the IRS rules on depreciation.

WNYC interviewed Elena Deblanco today - very poignant: http://www.wnyc.org/npr_articles/2012/jan/15/daughter-auctio...

When I worked at Lloyds of London I met some of the guys that focus on antique instruments - and one of the claims they had was a professional musician that ran over his 300 year old violin with his car. oops.

(and yep, the "no strings attached insurance" puns never ended)

How does the insurance even work on something like that. New for old just doesn't even begin to come close.

They got it repaired I believe; I think I read somewhere that it took a year.

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