How Much is My Violin Worth?

That is not a dodge, it is the truth, and the gap between the two is the whole subject. A battered Skylark from a school cupboard is worth what someone will pay for a wall decoration. A Stradivari is worth the price of a house, and then several more houses.

Most violins are neither. Most violins are worth somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand pounds, and the job of a valuation is to work out where in that range yours sits.

1 - Who made it, and whether we can show it.

This matters more than everything else put together. But a belief is not a proof. An instrument we think is by a maker and an instrument that can be demonstrated to be by that maker are two different propositions, and the difference between them is measured in money.

This is also where labels do their damage. A label saying Antonius Stradivarius means, almost always, that the violin is a copy. Hundreds of thousands of perfectly decent German and French instruments were made with that label in them and nobody was being dishonest; it described the model.

2 - Condition.

Not whether it looks smart. Whether it is structurally sound, how much of the original instrument is still there, and how well any repairs were done.

Old repairs, done well, are a normal part of a two hundred year old object and count against it hardly at all. Recent repairs done badly are a discount. A sound post crack through the back can take a very large bite out of the value indeed.

3 - Provenance.

Who has owned it and what paperwork survives. Most instruments have none and that is not held against them. When it does exist it helps, and occasionally it transforms things.

Auction value is not insurance value

Worth saying plainly, because it causes more confusion than anything else on this page.

An insurance valuation is what it would cost to walk into a shop and replace the thing. An auction valuation is what a room full of buyers is likely to pay for it on the day.

The second number is nearly always lower. That is not anybody short-changing you. They are answers to two different questions.

How we work out the number

We have been writing down what stringed instruments actually sell for since long before you could look it up. The Amati Archive now holds over 40,000 auction results across around 14,000 makers, and we add to it every quarter.

So when we value your violin we are not guessing from a feeling about the market. We are looking at what instruments like yours have genuinely fetched, recently, in public.

You can look through it yourself. It is free.

Search the Amati Instrument Archive

If you would rather have somebody look at it in person, here is where you can get a violin valuation, including the valuation days between now and Christmas.