4/4 Violin hunting

[Kutik73]

We've started hunting for a 4/4 violin for DS. We have visited two luthiers so far and each let us take one home. We can keep one for a week and another for two weeks.

DS likes one in particular and it costs £5500 for the violin alone. I know the price is not always mirrored to the quality of the sounds. It only makes difficult to judge as I don't play any instrument. So I did a bit of research and accidentally found the same violin being sold back in October for £1200-1800. It's auctioned so the exact selling price was not displayed. Looking at the photo, it has the same marks and scars so it's definitely the same violin we have here.

I can see the bridge, chin rest, and tuners has been replaced. But the selling notes stated the condition as excellent so I assume major work wasn't required by the luthier. But I don't know.

Surely luthiers have to make money so I understand it's common practice for them to buy something cheaper and add some work and sell at a higher price. But more than doubling the bought price sound quite a lot, especially it seemed to be in great conditions already.

Should I be careful or can I trust the luthier? I hope he is not pricing unnecessarily high... Any input/advice/sharing experiences would be greatly appreciated!

Martin Restall in Midhurst

He owns one of the most amazing workshops really. Sadly he is moving out very soon as the lease of the building is coming to end. The new place is in the same area and again very much interesting (but I really love his current place).

Anyway, DS's ex-violin teacher told us about him. The teacher bought 1/2 violin for his dd many years ago (then he bought 3/4 in Bristol). I rang Martin and told him what we were looking for and made a booking for a visit. When we arrived, nearly 10 violins were selected and put out on a table for DS to try. We were given plenty time to try all. This visit was made after I decided to re-start our search by dropping our budget so the selection was all pretty reasonable. After trying all, we wanted to see violins a little bit more expensive. Martin kindly brought a few more and let DS try as much as he wanted.

Martin's large collection seems to have grown by offering part-exchange. He said generally those violins bought from the clients are a lot better in condition than those found in auction and often only a bit of cleaning up is needed so he hardly buy violins from auction.

The reasonable old German with very loud sound which DS's teacher disliked with passion was from his workshop. For his defence, I did told him we were after big sound prior to the first visit, and with that price range he did made right selection for us. It was more like me who hadn't understood what 'big sound' meant and what the teacher was looking for so I couldn't really explain very well and Martin just followed my poor instruction of 'reasonable' yet 'big sound'.

When I returned, I told him everything honestly. He then said he understood more what kind of violin DS's teacher was looking for and agreed to help us find something more suitable.

Anyhow, soon after that we moved on to another violin from other luthier so didn't go back to Martin in the end. But he has lots of interesting instruments as well as bows. It's a bit pain for us to drive there - just a bit too far. So I am not sure if we go back for bows.

A violin maker told me years ago that apart from the star, headline instruments, many of the violins in auctions are what are now called "distress" sales , i.e. their sellers cannot dispose of them in any other way, and auctioning is their last resort.
Repairers/restorers might well be interested in them, but anybody looking for an instrument to play immediately needs to be very cautious and ideally involve an expert adviser.

PS, I wouldn't think that one week would be anything like long enough to try a violin, especially if a teacher is involved and holidays intervene.

I hope MidLifeCrisis007's recent auction challenge has gone well.... They did wonderfully for a violin....

Granny, I totally agree one week is nothing! Yet many luthiers I encounters had this one week policy. However all of them were very flexible. We returned in time for the violins we clearly knew we wouldn't want, but there were four violins we seriously considered purchasing and they all stayed with us MORE THAN A MONTH. We didn't need to negotiate but just explained why we needed to keep (each had a slightly different reason) but also offered to return asap if required (other clients were interested etc). They all understood it was a big shopping therefore hard to decide so soon, and actually advised me to take time.

Any seller worth their salt would understand that. I wouldn't advise dealing with anybody who didn't. Time pressure is absolutely what you don't need when choosing an instrument. As long as the seller knows who and where you are they should let you get on with it in your own time, within reason.

Thanks granny and kutik I will contact the luthier and see if he can do an extension. If he can't I'm sure there will be other 3/4 violins which are appropriate.

se22, is it one of the luthiers on my list? If so you should have no problem. Good luck!

I need to start thinking of the bow. But perhaps it's wiser to wait till DS's grade exam finishes. But this means our bow hunt may not start till July. DS will be away for the whole summer as soon as school finishes. I am hoping to get a bow before secondary starts so ideally need to find it before summer holiday. Is bow hunt prone to take time as much or longer than violin hunt? I hope not!

At least bows can be posted in reasonable safety in a plastic tube. There need not be the same amount of legwork involved.

Good points!

DS's teacher once spent a year to find 'it'. It won't prob happen to us though and I presume it'll be rather quick as we don't really have strong opinion on bows yet. Or does he???

se22 are you considering buying a new instrument? Yitamusic are currently selling a beautiful looking 3/4 violin for £176. Add £65 postage and £50 for proper strings. I have bought many instruments and bows from this Shanghai company. These violins are beautifully made and incredible value since you are not paying a shop's mark-up. You can return the violin at your own expense if it's not satisfactory. I never have. Find them on EBay (font let that put you off). Go to advanced search, search by company name as above and it will take you to their "shop". If you do go this route it would be wise to take the violin to a repairer to to check out the setup. I find some small tweaks are necessary, but nothing much. They are sending out near-perfect items, unlike the cellos I once bought from a well-known makers.

Bows are very personal: the weight does come into it; some like a heavier or light bow, but the balance is the most important and the right bow will do much of the work for you.

kutik I have pm'd you the name of the luthier- I don't think you went to see him, but I may be mistaken

Granny thanks for the advice

Hello again Kutik!

It was a cello that DH bought at auction last time - a lovely old German factory made one that my DD now has and loves. He's also since bought 2 fantastic bows at auction. Anecdotally, the kids' cello teacher loved one of them so much, he sold it to her.... and because he's a"business man", he added the princely sum of £1 to his costs so that he made a profit!!!

His latest obsession is finding a 4/4 cello for DS who is 11 and has only just progressed from a 1/2 to a 3/4. He's planning ahead and searching every auction in the sodding world for cello bargains! He gets alerts every day of new cello listings. I'm rather dreading him finding one as he's enjoying the hunt so much....it has become his obsession.

This is one that he'd planned to bid on but got distracted on a work call so missed the auction (snigger!!!). www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/anderson-and-garland-newcastle/catalogue-id-srand10146/lot-963c40ec-0f61-447c-ab5c-a8ce00c96d9c I think the luthier in question makes some lovely instruments but there is very little information about him. I think it went for about £2k but is probably worth up to 5 x that.

Thanks for the update, MidLife. Your journey with auction items are truly fascinating. I don't know anyone around me who took in such a challenge!! Your DH should start a thread one day. I am serious though. It would be very much educational. Good luch with the hunting and please let us know when you finally find 'it'.

luch? luck!!!

Martin Swan

I contacted him after a kind poster recommended. I rang him and the meeting was set pretty quickly even though he lived far away from London. He seems to have recently moved to Somerset but when we met he was still up North, I think. He has lots business in London so he comes quite frequently.

As you can see from his website, he has new and old violins. At the time, I'd just started looking for more reasonable options, so I was only interested in his new violins (he's got lots of old violins which are a lot more expensive). There are several models for the new ranges. After brief explanation about our situation on the phone, he brought me one of his Artist Violins. However he was adamant DS may not be satisfied by that. His new violins are great for learners, even for very serious ones. Because he pays great deal of attention to producing the balanced and responsive sound which is very important yet surprisingly quite hard to find. The reason why he thought it may not be for DS was because he felt DS may have already developed his own taste for colours and characters, and his new violins may appear to lack strong individuality/characters, which are actually good selling points of those violins though.

Martin came across very honest and open. No frills nor ribbons, just talks things pin-point, which I liked. He gave me lots of advice from his experience.

DS did liked the clear, pure and somehow sweet sound. He also found it easy to play. It projected very well too. But he felt it lacking richness for his taste. It's really only his view and I am sure many people find Martin's violins perfect.

Shockingly, I still have his violin.... I contacted him several times and he knows we decided not to take it so need to return. But somehow the arrangement hasn't been made yet... In fact, writing the review reminded me I've got to contact him again. It's scary to keep the several thousands pound in our home...

At one point we had 4 violins in the house, only one of which (the cheapest) was ours. It's a bit scary, especially since you couldn't walk about without tripping over one.

Kutik to update you the luthier we spoke of is fine for us to keep the violin for a couple of weeks. Thanks again for the amazing thread

NeverEver, we kept violins in the living room because that's where DS normally practises. Every time we had DS's friends came around I had to move all of them to our bedroom. At some points we had more than 4 and DH was joking that we became a dealer.

se22, thanks for the update. Hope the teacher approves your choice. God luck!

Yesterday DS took the violin to school because he had to play something. Normally children leave their violins in the room where the violin teacher uses for lessons, so no one will touch it and safe. However, yesterday was organised by school, not by the violin teacher, and he was not in so no safe lesson room was available! DS asked if he could leave it in the office which was accepted. Came back home with arms and legs (well not literally!). Phew!!

Good luck, not God luck...

Kutik Did you have to buy a case for the violin too? (Have just looked and am a bit amused/terrified at cases costing £700...)

Which maker are you looking at?

I was prepared to invest in a good case - I thought quality violin would deserve well protection! I didn't want to buy a soft case, for instance. But many quality hard cases were £500+... It's as if buying him a designer bag!! So I felt no way... In the end I picked Gewa Air. It was £300+ so still expensive but acceptable for my sense. We get lots of compliments and even the teacher really liked it (she uses BAM). We are happy with our choice. It's light, compact and strong.

However, my dream case would be Musafia. Their standard cases are too heavy but they do make lighter and more compact models which would suite our needs. Maybe one day!