Even though often scandalously weighted to favor the house, prices reflect the general range of value for a given object as well as the trend or fashion prevailing among collectors. Violins sold at antique auction houses are sold without being played, without any test for sound. No attention goes to the instrument's intrinsic value . Perusal of a Sotheby's auction catalog will quickly illustrate my claims, however casually one reads. Permit me a few quick generalizations about these matters.
Museums enter the bidding for one reason, a desire to add to the store of items they exhibit.
No one, in short, purchases the Duesenberg because of its having the kind of value I am calling intrinsic . For they choose without reference to an objective standard. Old, expensive, antique violins sound better than less expensive violins crafted by twentieth-century masters. The beauty of sound of a violin has NO necessary relation to the price or age of the instrument. What a violinist hears and feels when he plays is as subjective as the perfume of a rose.