refreshing, "feel-good" perspective on MAS

[billkilpatrick]

on violinist.com i read that violinist anne akiko meyers recently purchased the "ex-molitor" stradivarius violin for $3.6 million. she is also in possession of the "royal spanish" stradivarius, once owned by the king of spain (price unknown.)

go on ... what's another gibson, here or there?

[Pikalot]

So true.

At what point, btw, do you think sound and playability have been paid for in today's market, and cosmetics determine the remaining cost? Based on the market, don't most of you agree that the best of mandolins can be made for under 5k before any discernable improvement is achieved? New instruments, I mean. I won't mention names but with some makers it's pretty obvious that you start to pay for the name after around 5k. I know I'm veering off the point of the thread, sorry.

[farmerjones]

If somebody was to pay too much for something, why not be something that at least has the potential to do something extraordinary? Though it's still a tool, the Strad, has some real potential for doing something extraordinary.

an interesting aside; to be able to remove my personal point of view of money. To consider X ammount of money to somebody from an extremely weathly country, or an exeedingly poor country. For instance, some gamble with more money than some country's GNP.
i think 3.6 million USD isn't what it used to be. i don't know if you can just wake up one morning and go buy any one of the remaining Strads? I wonder if there is some list of potential Strad buyers? I wonder if there is some list of potential panamax super tanker buyers? I wonder if there exists some list of potential Rogue, A style mandolin buyers?

[BradKlein]

It's helpful to remember that there are orders of magnitude more pro violinists in the world than pro mandolin pickers. That classical music features unamplified acoustic instruments far more than any other genre. That there is much longer history and more $$ involved overall.

As for Pikalot's point, if you pick up a Gilchrist mandolin or a DMM, it's not a subtle difference between those and lots of mid-price mandolins. I won't get into 'better or worse', cuz that depends on what you're after. I've watched Thile and Daves play duets - one playing a $500 mandolin and one $250,000 mandolin, and they sounded great together, so take from that whatever lesson you will!

[billkilpatrick]

$3,600,000.00 ... just wanted to see what that looked like with all the zeros in place. there's got to be very few problems that can't be solved with $3,600,000.00 in the bank.

[Ed Goist]

At what point, btw, do you think sound and playability have been paid for in today's market, and cosmetics determine the remaining cost? Based on the market, don't most of you agree that the best of mandolins can be made for under 5k before any discernable improvement is achieved? New instruments, I mean. I won't mention names but with some makers it's pretty obvious that you start to pay for the name after around 5k. I know I'm veering off the point of the thread, sorry.

I've followed this topic closely on the Cafe for the past several months, and the numbers usually thrown out there by those in the know range from $3,500 to $5,000. However, some have argued for an even higher upper number.

Unfortunately (?), market demand (due to collectiblity, name, or whatever) will always trump sound and playability when it comes to establishing price...Demand drives price, quality does not (they usually go together, but often not proportionately).

[farmerjones]

Bill,
Thanks for the Tube.
Sure, Akiko goes right for the rosin zone. But y'know it does have some bark dozenit? Put some steel strings on that, and she'd have something.

Did she say 200k for a bow?

[billkilpatrick]

Did she say 200k for a bow?

i heard that too. to quote f. scott fitzgerald - "the very rich are very different ..."

[Rick Albertson]

"As an artist you are forever looking, locating your sound. Each violin has its own unique personality, its identity, just like you and me. When you actually come across the sound that you love, you fall in love... It's very much a projection of who you are at that moment. It's just like music – it's so incredibly multi-layered, so spiritual and part of your being."

Anne Akiko Meyers speaking to Laurie Niles about the "ex-Molitor" Stradivarius Violin

Violinist.com Interview

[catmandu2]

on violinist.com i read that violinist anne akiko meyers recently purchased the "ex-molitor" stradivarius violin for $3.6 million. she is also in possession of the "royal spanish" stradivarius, once owned by the king of spain (price unknown.)

Which answers my initial wonder: after one acquires a multi-million dollar instrument, does one desire another? Seriously, I think I could live with just the one.

But I also wonder: would I feel conspicuous playing such a fiddle...in first position all day?

Wonderful music, btw.

[Jack Roberts]

Wow, what double stops!

[JonZ]

I've always wondered if women were prone to MAS as much as men. I have always looked at it as a sublimation of our genetic inclination toward polygamy. I can't have a blond, brunet and red head, but I can have an A, F and oval.

[Tom Wright]

The big-name violins have three reasons for high price beyond antique value: 1) They do in fact kick ass, 2) when you have the use of one you have no remaining excuses for not being Heifetz except practicing, and 3) just like a photographer gets more gigs if he shows up with a Hasselblad, the solo violinist gets more gigs. You pretty much automatically have to take the person seriously, because they take the gig seriously by committing their resources at that level.

There are Strads that don't carry a big tag, because they don't deliver what the sought-after ones do. String players do like having more than one instrument, but usually concentrate on one performing instrument.

Yo-Yo's main axe is worth several million, but he gets at least 100K for one gig. Multiply by a hundred or more per year.

[JeffD]

don't most of you agree that the best of mandolins can be made for under 5k before any discernable improvement is achieved? New instruments, I mean. I won't mention names but with some makers it's pretty obvious that you start to pay for the name after around 5k. .

No I don't agree. At all. (Respectfully of course.)

Certainly there are instruments whose price is more name than quality. But I don't think there is a number above which all is hyped reputation.

First of all, the price one can make an instrument for may or may not have anything to do with the price one can buy it for. People purchase a $10,000 instrument because, with their talents and the opportunity costs of their time, it would cost them a lot more than $10,000 to make one of similar quality. (Heck, with my luthiery talents it would cost way more than twice that and sound worse than what you can get for $500!) And the luthier, knowing the market for his or her instruments, can hopefully make that $10,000 instrument with total costs in materials and time at a living wage, for less than $10,000. So everybody wins. Thats the whole point.

But more importantly, I think the qualitiative differences, in playability, tone and sound, etc., are appreciated differently at different levels. While I myself might not perceive a difference between a $5000 instrument and a $9000 instrument, that does not mean there isn't one - an objectively verifiable difference that is perceived by someone else, and a difference that is worth the extra $4000 to the purchaser.

Yea there is hype, and reputation, and bragging rights and ego, but its not ubiquitous above a certain price point.

[Greg H.]

Jeff,

I very much agree with you. Yes, undoubtedly there are F5Gs that could easily match up with Sam Bush (for example), but I think above around $7,000 or $8,000 and up there becomes a really noticible difference. In the upper range, however, I think there could be more of a subjective difference in a $10,000+ difference (e.g. the difference between an Ellis or Kimble compared with a Nugget or Gilchrist would be more subjective than it would be 'quality'--in my opinion of course).

It could be that a $5,000 mandolin might could match (or even exceed) one like Nugget or Gilchrist, but I have yet to see such (but to see it doesn't happen would be foolish--and here too that can happen subjectively).

Of those in the $100,000 range...or those in the $1,000,000 range, however, I have no concept.

and not I'm heading to the tornado shelter before the argument begins.....

[Andy Miller]

That fiddle is 225 years older than any Loar-signed F5, and is reputed to have once been owned by Napoleon Bonaparte. It would be rather collectible even if it sounded average!

[billkilpatrick]

just an opinion, but here it goes: i think there's a point where "medium (becomes) the message" - whatever "buzz" there may be over any particular instrument (and its current market value) i think it has more to to do with us - as consumers - than it as an instrument.

my musical odyssey started many years ago with a ukulele. i'd love to have it back in my hands again ... but no matter how much i cherish its memory, i suspect it would sound like a cardboard box in comparison with the stunningly beautiful, relatively inexpensive instruments i've bought lately.

even with inflation and the fluctuating value of the dollar ... $3.6 million is an awful lot of kale - how could anyone - anyone with their feet on the ground - spend $3.6 million dollars for a wooden box with strings, tuning pegs and a neck?

[allenhopkins]

i heard that too. to quote f. scott fitzgerald - "the very rich are very different ..."

Fitzgerald wrote in The Rich Boy (1926), Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.

Ernest Hemingway is supposed to have replied, Yes, they have more money. However, not true, according to Wikipedia (source of all truth, isn't it?)

Anne Akiko Myers played the $3.6 million Strad on Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell this week. I missed it, though. Good bullet point when my wife Joan questions my instrument acquisitions, however...

[Ivan Kelsall]

If she ever comes to sell either of her Violins on,i'd be very surprised if she didn't make a profit on them,as well as all the money she's earned playing them. A 'sound' investment IMHO. Regarding with '' living with just one '',i believe that one of my very favourite Mandolin players,the legendary Herschel Sizemore,has 3 Loars,& how many of us have more than one 'very good' Mandolin of our own ?. I think that it's a lot to do with our nature that we're always seeking something different,
Ivan

[Chuck Naill]

on violinist.com i read that violinist anne akiko meyers recently purchased the "ex-molitor" stradivarius violin for $3.6 million. she is also in possession of the "royal spanish" stradivarius, once owned by the king of spain (price unknown.)

go on ... what's another gibson, here or there?

With two violins, I was wondering if she is able to play each often enough to keep them opened up or if she uses a device to help keep each sounding good?

[Charlieshafer]

Well, chances are good that she financed it. There are quite a few reputable firms that do instrument financing and insurance as a sole business, but it has to be a great instrument and a sound player to make a secure loan. Most all the top violinists have 2-3 top fiddles that are from that period, be it Strads, Amatis, Guarneris or whatever. They all do have different tones so they do get used for different pieces. As there's no amplification, there's no room for equalizing the sound for good tone. A piece of Coplands requires a different tone and technique than one by Bach, for example. Annie-Sophie Mutter, one of the top few soloists in the world, gets about $50,000 (or was it Euros?) per evening, and that's stayed roughly the same through the recession. Where the dollars in the classical world have been hurt the most are the smaller symphonies, and as those have suffered the slightly off-A-list soloists have suffered. I'll bet top fiddlers like an Alasdair Fraser or Stuart Duncan are making far more bucks than many conservatory-trained classical soloists right now. A good player in a really good bluegrass/whatevergrass type band is doing better than most small-market symphonie players, and by a lot. So, Willie was wrong, mamas, make you babies grow up to be cowboys.

[Fretbear]

To tell you the truth, her tone on that thing doesn't do much for me, seems a bit sharp and thin.
Maybe it's the Loar-priced bow......

[allenhopkins]

Once did a benefit concert, where one of the other acts was a professional cellist. She had an 18th-century Italian instrument (I forget the maker's name) for which a "syndicate" had paid $350K, and then loaned it to her for performance. Many classical soloists below the superstar, $50K per performance level, don't own the instruments they play, but rent or lease them from the owners who've ponied up the big buxx for them.

[swampy]

Wow, what double stops!

No Kidding!!! I know what I'll be practicing this weekend!

[Jill McAuley]

I've always wondered if women were prone to MAS as much as men. I have always looked at it as a sublimation of our genetic inclination toward polygamy. I can't have a blond, brunet and red head, but I can have an A, F and oval.

Lasses prone to MAS as much as men? Oh, don't even get me started! Just under two years into playing the mandolin and at last count 9 mandolins have come and gone thru my household! Unfortunately these days my MAS has to be of the "catch and release" variety vs. the "accumulate a herd" variety. It recently surfaced with a vengeance, hence where my signature used to read "Weber Custom Gallatin F" it now reads "Weber Custom Vintage A"....

Cheers,
Jill