From what I understand, the modern violins in this price range tend to be completely handcrafted by luthiers. (Actually $100K sounds high. Googling, it seems po

From what I understand, the modern violins in this price range tend to be completely handcrafted by luthiers. (Actually $100K sounds high. Googling, it seems possible to get handmade violins for $10-$25K. See this quest: http://www.violinist.com/blog/smileyh1/20095/10115/ http://www.violinist.com/blog/smileyh1/20095/10115/) Luthier is definitely a skilled trade like any wood working, and I think it's easy for me to buy that an entirely hand-crafted product will have some "signatures" in tone and -- especially -- playability that, especially for the professional, might be worth paying for. (I know I definitely have some preferences in acoustic grands that boils down mostly to the nice playability of certain high end models, and I'm hardly a professional piano player!) I also imagine that above a certain quality level, much lower costing products will often be entirely acceptable. Actually, like wines, I imagine in some cases people might actually prefer the tone of the cheaper product. On the other hand, there's definitely a "too cheap" instrument level that's mostly for students / beginners. One additional point concerning the violin market, too, I know that if you change the name of "violin" to "fiddle", you'll find very few bluegrass shops selling fiddles over $1K. :)