
Selling a 300-Year-Old Cello - pg
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/magazine/bernard-greenhouse-cello.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all
======
51Cards
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.

~~~
kawera
[http://patekwatch.blogspot.com/2011/05/patek-philippe-ad-
ref...](http://patekwatch.blogspot.com/2011/05/patek-philippe-ad-
reference-5205g.html)

[http://patekwatch.blogspot.com/2011/11/patek-philippe-
calatr...](http://patekwatch.blogspot.com/2011/11/patek-philippe-calatrava-ad-
reference.html)

~~~
51Cards
Brilliant! Thank you, hadn't seen those before.

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

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dbalatero
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.

~~~
mynameishere
_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>

~~~
corin_
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.

~~~
mvgoogler
_"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...

~~~
cperciva
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.

~~~
mvgoogler
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.

------
aarghh
WNYC interviewed Elena Deblanco today - very poignant:
[http://www.wnyc.org/npr_articles/2012/jan/15/daughter-
auctio...](http://www.wnyc.org/npr_articles/2012/jan/15/daughter-auctions-
stradivari-cello-to-hear-it-again/)

------
pclark
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)

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

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

