TEN THOUSAND POUNDS FOR A VIOLIN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 53, 11 June 1910, Page 9

TEN THOUSAND POUNDS FOR A VIOLIN

BUYING AT 0s; SELLING AT £IOOO.

An announcement that a collection of violins which 'belonged to the late Mr. George Haddock, the famous musician, is to be sold has aroused the keenest interest amongst dealers 'and collectors. The Haddock fiddles are repined to .be the finest .private collection in existence, the germ being the "Emperor Stradivarius," pronounced by Joachim to be the finest violin he had even seen, and which is stated to be worth £IO,OOO. It is nearly two hundred years old, and notwithstanding its great age looks as fresh as if it had but yesterday left the hands of Antonia Stradivari, the famous violin maker of Cremona,

This, is a somewhat exceptional value to be placed on a violin, the price of each of the 000 Strads which are known to be in existence ranging from £SOO to £ISOO. Perhaps the only violin which can be compared with the "Emperor Stradivarius" of the Haddock collection is the one which Paganini left to the city of Genoa, for which as much as £IO,OOO has been offered. The Strad presented to the late Dr. Joachim on the occasion of his jubilee cost £I2OO, winlc that presented to Lady Halle by the Duke of Edinburgh, the late Earl of Dudley, aad the "late Lord Hardwieke cost i'IOOO.

When Ssrasate's will was proved two years ago, it was found that he had bequeathed £4OOO and a "Strad each to the Conservatoires of Paris and Madrid, the money 'being for the pur-pose of founding prizes bearing his name. Each of the violins was valued at about £21)00. one of the instruments having been discovered in a very romantic manner. At one time it was the property of a Genevan blacksmith, to whom it had been given by a traveller who could not ■pay for the shoeing of his horse. Kor years it hung on the wall of the blacksmith's- house, until after many years another .horseman, M. Bossier, who was also a violinist and a collector of violins, came along. The blacksmith asked M. Boissier to buy the violin from him at his own price, or »'lse to find -him a purchaser. M. Boissier carried it away, cleaned off the smoke, discovered the Strad mark—and did not defraud the blacksmith. The story reminds one that the favorite violin of M. Eugene Vsaye—a maimilicent Strad, valued at hm). which was stolen from his dressing-room three years ago, while in St. Petersburg—is said to have changed hands at one period for 355, 'being sold at that price by an unknown traveller to a waiter hi a railway resturant in a small Moravian town.

Twice at least £20(10 has been pa hi by private treaty for .Strads, and €I4OO was .paid for a "Betts' Strad," the title which it gained from the folfowmg incident. Betts. was a music-seller in London some sixty years ago, and one day 'a, stranger entered his shopi offering a violin for sale at the low sum of one guinea, -and secured the instrument. He retained it in his family for a number of years, and, after changing hands several times, it was .bought at the figure named by a foreign nobleman. Five years ago £7-00 was ipakl for a Strad which for years was played upon by a strolling musician in the X-otting Hill and M'arylehone districts of London 1 ; while time ago £I6OO was paid for a fiddle which had 'previously been blocked down at an auction sale to a -laborer for Os. Fortunately for him'; The" 'laborer- ta-?w^s^nircg v .af ...th,e value of fiddles, and a few days later sold Ms treasure to a dealer in curios for £OOO. Ultimately the latter sold it for £l6oo—truly a record bargain.: