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You CAN get a great sounding violin on eBay for $200, but you might have to buy and return a couple dozen violins to end up with one you like. My story is, tha
by ctrager 15y ago
You CAN get a great sounding violin on eBay for $200, but you might have to buy and return a couple dozen violins to end up with one you like. My story is, that for my kid, I bought a $5,000 violin from a dealer after doing blind testing among a range of violins with ourselves and my kid's high-powered teachers. Everybody agreed that this was a great sounding violin. A couple years later, I wanted a cheap violin for myself so I bought a $200 violin on eBay. It arrived with a fallen soundpost so I needed to take it to the violin store for them to reset it for $15, plus, I put new strings on it for $40. I ended up selling that one and buying another $200 violin, which needed a new bridge, which costs about $75 at the local violin shop. I didn't want to spend so much money for each of the violins I was trying, so instead of getting it fixed at the shop, I ended up learning how to shape a new bridge myself, to save money. What followed was a couple year period where I bought and sold about two dozen $200 violins. I would buy them on eBay, fix them up into playable condition, and resell them from my home via Craigslist.
So, the buyers would come with their own current violins and I would put my eBay specials AND my kid's $5,000 into the mix for the blind sound tests. The $5,000 violin was always one of the leaders but not always the winner.
Eventually I settled on a single violin that I liked the best to keep for my own. I took it to the violin shop where people had much more skill than me and spent about $600 to get a nicer bridge, soundpost, and for some repair work that I didn't have the skills to tackle. So, yes, I got a great sounding violin for $200, a couple years of trial and error learning, and then another $600 for rehab.
- cube13 15y agoThis is pretty much why I can't believe that any serious musician would buy a musical instrument for over a few hundred dollars, sight unseen. There are simply too many variables to make that kind of purchase worthwhile. If the buyer isn't serious about it, a cheaper instrument will probably be exactly what they need for years. For serious musicians, an instrument that they're comfortable with is more important than anything else, and they should be trying out every one before they buy it.
- brigade 15y agoThere are some rarer instruments where you almost have to, for instance a bass sax. You aren't going to find one for under several thousand even in bad condition, and if you buy new it's hard to find somewhere to try one model, let alone compare more than one of the half dozen new models.
- ctrager 15y agoRe-reading what I wrote, I guess I made it sound like a negative experience, but actually it was a fun adventure. All the buying experiences on eBay were positive. I never felt like I got ripped off. It was fun learning how to fiddle with fiddles. In theory, it could have even been a sort of money-making hobby, although I only managed to only about break even (Am I supposed to count my tool purchases against profit? Nah.)
- cube13 15y agoWhoops, forgot the quote. I was responding specifically to the line: >So, the buyers would come with their own current violins and I would put my eBay specials AND my kid's $5,000 into the mix for the blind sound tests. The $5,000 violin was always one of the leaders but not always the winner.