For much more than a song

• Last Updated: November 21. 2009 4:38PM UAE / November 21. 2009 12:38PM GMT

The musician Aaron Rosand sold his ex-Kochanski Guarneri del Gesù violin last month for US$10 million. Matt Rourke / AP Photo

The violinist Aaron Rosand decided to sell his beloved ex-Kochanski Guarneri del Gesù violin last month to a Russian billionaire for US$10 million (Dh36.7 million) – the highest price ever paid for such an instrument.

“Actually it is equal highest,” says Tim Ingles, the director of musical instruments at the London auction house Sotheby’s. “A Stradivarius called the Lady Blunt made in 1721 sold last year for the same price.”

According to Ingles, Rosand’s very expensive violin was a sound investment. In 1971, Sotheby’s sold the Lady Blunt for $84,000, which back then was four times the auction record. Its 2008 sale price represented a rise in value of 10 per cent per annum. By the same calculation, in 10 years’ time, Rosand’s Strad will be worth $20 million.

“That’s better than bonds and better than cash in the bank, but it doesn’t beat the stock market,” says Ingles. “But then, with the violin market in particular, there is no volatility. At this time of global recession there has been no flattening off, no downward movement. That’s why people put money into musical instruments. Whatever happens, the violin market soldiers on.”

But why do violins command these prices and not, say, tubas?

“Unlike any other branch of engineering, there has been no progress for over 300 years,” he says. “The best instruments just happen to be antique.”

There are also a limited number of them: there are only around 550 Stradivarius violins left in the world.

But who buys these fabulously rare, and fabulously expensive, instruments? Sometimes philanthropic organisations such as the Chicago-based Stradivari Foundation buy them to donate to promising young musicians; sometimes private collectors buy for themselves, says Ingles. These days, top-flight concert musicians such as Josh Bell may not be able to afford their own Strad and so look to sponsors to help them out. For sponsors, having a well-known musician play your instrument increases its value. When it is time to sell, the best violins are sold privately. The wealthiest collectors prefer it that way.

For anyone considering getting into the expensive musical instrument market, Ingles has some tips. Strads and Guarneri del Gesù violins are the best investments as both enjoy the “masterpiece effect”, he says, in that they are accepted as the best quality by the world’s leading concert violinists. “The musicians have spoken,” says Ingles.

“The best Strads were made between 1709 and 1718,” he says. “The pinnacle was 1715. The closer you get to that, the better.”

At the bottom end, potential bidders should plump for an early-20th-century violin from Italy costing no less than $15,000.

“Italy is to violins what Scotland is to whisky. It’s a recognised brand of quality. These instruments will more than hold their value,” he says.

The criteria for buying a violin are authenticity, sound, condition and history, says Ingles. For the violin market, sound is key, but beyond that, the story behind an instrument can decide whether it commands the highest prices. This is particularly true of instruments used by famous rock ’n’ rollers.

Eric Clapton’s favourite “Blackie” guitar, assembled from spare guitar parts in the 1970s for a few hundred dollars, is the most expensive guitar ever sold publicly. It went for $959,500 in 2004. The most expensive piano sold at auction is John Lennon’s Steinway, which went for £1.45 million (Dh8.95m) in October 2000 to the pop star George Michael. Lennon is believed to have composed the song Imagine on the upright walnut piano, which still bears his old cigarette burns. The most expensive drums were sold in 2004 for £139,650. They originally belonged to The Who’s drummer Keith Moon, who somehow neglected to destroy this custom-made 1968 kit. The most expensive trumpet ever sold at auction is Dizzy Gillespie’s Martin Committee trumpet, which went for $55,000 at Christie’s in New York in 1995. The bebop virtuoso Gillespie played Committees throughout his career, as did the jazz greats Miles Davis and Chet Baker.

Instruments with this kind of pedigree always sell well, says Ingles. But then so do most top-notch varieties. Ingles has no doubts that whatever the global economy might be doing right now, the musical instrument market is in good shape.

“Ten million people in China are learning the violin,” he says. “That’s huge. There is absolutely no reason to suspect the market won’t continue to rise.”