Where Do I Shop for a Violin, Anyway?
How to Buy a
Violin, Part III by Stefan Hersh
So,
where does one shop for an instrument or bow?
1.) Dealer purchases -
It may come as a surprise to many, but some of the best help in the string
instrument business comes from the major dealers who carry inventory, and
have ongoing enterprises and reputations to protect. A major dealer takes
on the expense and risk, and hassle associated with administration,
publicity and financing inventory as well as maintaining and funding a
skilled repair shop. Under the law a dealer must protect you from
problems of authenticity and hidden flaws. The best dealers know that they
have their name on the line every time they make a claim to you about
something they have for sale. The best dealers have trade-in policies
which allow the consumer some degree of mobility in upgrading their
instruments. The best dealers will allow you a reasonable amount of time
to be sure that the instrument in question really is for you. The same
dealer will help bolster your confidence when it comes time to make a
financial commitment to that instrument. In return for all of this the
dealer expects to make a substantial profit. And you need the dealers to
make this profit so that they will be in business when you need help with
repairs, appraisals or future purchases and sales. The best dealers reward
customer loyalty by treating their valued return customers with great care.
A tried and true purchase strategy is to develop a trusting relationship
with a major dealer and stick with that relationship. Which dealers are to
be trusted is a matter of opinion. In the end it comes down to a
relationship between you and that dealer. Ask around, but take all
opinions, good and bad, with a grain of salt. Then decide who you will
trust based on your sense of the integrity of that dealer and your
relationship with the dealer and the staff with whom you will be working. Ask to try the finest merchandise in your price
category. When it comes time to negotiate a sales price simply ask for the
best deal that the dealer can give you. Avoid letting the relationship
with the dealer degenerate into an adversarial situation. Even if you win
the battle, you may still lose the war, as the dealer will be disinclined to
be cooperative in future dealings. Attention to the long term health of
your relationship with the best dealers will pay off in the long run.
2.) Buying at auction -
In recent years auction houses have increasingly tailored their sales to
cater to retail consumers. Some very attractive instruments can be bought
at auction; sometimes for advantageous prices. But the most desirable
examples generally fetch high prices at auction. And auctions often have
many less desirable pieces; those that have been difficult for dealers to
sell. The consumer is fairly well protected against authenticity and
inherent vice problems at major auction houses. But the auction house is
not set up to inform the consumer of the relative quality of the pieces
offered. Figuring out which instruments are worthy of consideration is no
small task! Don't expect help in this regard from the
dealers that you see at the auction. As a buyer at the auction you are in
competition with the dealers. The dealers usually win this contest by
virtue of their well-developed knowledge and communication network.
Auction houses typically offer less trial time than retail shops, and
virtually no backup service such as repairs, adjustments and trade-in
policies to prospective
buyers. If you can make a good decision for yourself quickly, if you will
not need backup services, and if you don't plan to trade in your purchases,
auction may be a viable purchase strategy to consider. If you do not meet
those criteria, then buying at auction is probably not for you.
I don't recommend eBay, or other online auctioneers who are not specialists in string instruments or other fine arts, as a source. A wise retail purchase of a fine
instrument or bow can usually only be made with the object in hand.
Digital photos over the internet just don't provide enough information in
my opinion. And an auction such as eBay is a risky way to purchase, as the
auctioneer is merely a facilitator, and does not necessarily offer any substantial measure of protection from vendors'
misrepresentations. The major auction houses, which are increasingly
expanding their business to the Internet, as well as Tarisio Auctions,
which are exclusively on the Internet, schedule live viewings of the items,
and stand behind their cataloguing principles. An eBay purchase, on the
other hand,
is essentially a private transaction.
Should you still find yourself tempted by an offering on eBay, at least protect
yourself by setting up an escrow account for payment. (see Soundpost
Online, Winter 2001, for a hapless account of an
eBay purchase.)
3.) Private transactions -
Some private transactions work well for consumers, but generally speaking
this is not the best way for a consumer to purchase a fine instrument or
bow. The private seller is usually trying to avoid paying a
dealer a commission. The private seller often hopes to achieve a retail
price without providing any of the service which a major dealer provides.
If this suits everybody concerned, no problem, but generally the retail
consumer will need the services offered by a retail shop. Some of those
services can be paid for at a shop but for most repair shops bench time is
at a premium and
dealers give priority to their loyal customers.
Beware of special "deals" offered privately. Most of the time
those "deals" are not what they are pretending to be. And when
things go wrong in a private transaction recourse is usually limited and
expensive.
Still, it is possible to find a great deal privately from time to time.
The risks are higher, the success rate is low, but if you get lucky you
may be able to buy a fine instrument at a true wholesale price from a
private party.
I
know where to go, now what do I look for?
If you have gotten this far and still want to buy a fine string
instrument, you should now develop a specific strategy for identifying the
right piece for you.
I always start by recommending the most broadly desirable pieces within
the buyer's price range. This is because the resale and trade-in
possibilities and
long-term growth in equity are so much more favorable with pieces that are
in great demand. The most desirable items exclude inventory with major
conditional flaws. Yet for some consumers, the choice to buy a flawed
piece, that is discounted for it's flaws, is a workable strategy for
buying into, what would otherwise be, an inaccessible level of instrument
or bow.
Make
sure that you try the instrument or bow in question in the broadest
possible variety of playing conditions, in order to understand its
strengths and limitations. But be realistic about where and how you will
eventually use it. It makes little sense to reject an instrument as not
being a soloist's tool if you are an ensemble player.
What about marketability versus tone ?
Players are forever mystified by dealer appraisals of instruments which do
not involve the tone of the instruments. And dealers are forever mystified
by the subjective nature of the retail public's assessment of tone. Since
many aspects of tone production can be addressed in the workshop, and
still others can be addressed in the practice studio, tone should be only
one of many properties considered in the purchase.
How
much can I afford?
It is important to know how much you can spend before you start shopping.
Decide on your price range and more or less stick to it. Dealers will
often show you examples which reach above your stated price range. This is
sometimes because the inventory in a given price range is limited or
because the dealers believes that you may actually be willing to spend
more. In either case don't let that strategy catch you off guard. From the
perspective of less expensive inventory which you might have been
auditioning, a substantial jump upward in level can seem revelatory. But
try at least a couple of instruments or bows of comparable value before
buying in any price range.
Make sure that you know how quickly you can access your funds. Once you
have identified the piece to buy, the speed with which you can pay may be
a point
of negotiation with a dealer. In any case you cannot finalize a deal until
this information is known.
How
much should I pay?
The consumer will do well to understand that the prices for instruments
have evolved and continue to evolve based on long-term observations about
desirability and marketability. It has been observed, for instance, that
over many years Stradivari violins have been in demand. The set up of a
particular Stradivari violin may be such that one or another retail
consumer would not favor that violin over some less expensive instruments.
The retail
consumer might interpret from that sample that Stradivari violins are
relatively overvalued in the market. But the dealer and expert has a
broader view possibly having seen the same violin draw great favor with
the last
wonderful soloist who visited his or her shop. Examples of this sort of
situation exist at all ranges of the market. The consumer should assess
value and tone as more or less separate issues; both of them are somewhat
subjective, but in different ways. The consumer will do well to
accept his or her relative ignorance about value, as well as the
subjective nature of the assessment and production of tone. #
Stefan Hersh
Coming next, Part IV in this series:
How to try a violin
Stefan Hersh is a violinist, who
is Coordinator of Strings at
De Paul
University, and owner of Hersh Consulting, Inc.