A peak under the bonnet

My family were still fairly young and it was pleasant to be closer to them. Perhaps more pertinently, my rare trips were optimised to cover as much ground in the States within the shortest possible period of time. I would come home frazzled and unfit for parenthood, or indeed for any human contact.

And yet as a country it still has a hold on me. My mother was from the U.S. originally and my early summers were spent just outside Boston. I learned to swim in an American lake and realised from a fairly early age that my British teeth might not be of the same quality as my American cousins. It is one of the great triumphs of my life that my children have been whipped into anguished shape by years of orthodontics. They could almost pass for human sometimes.

In a bid to test the U.S. waters a few months ago, I flew out to a few cities and did some valuation days. They were not busy. Our advertising failed totally, but it did give me time to explore how we could do things differently in future. However, in one hotel in Kansas I met a client who came in with five violins, one of which was by the maker Marcin Groblicz. I had only ever seen a couple of violins by the maker but he is remarkably distinctive and beyond charming. Up to this point they had never really made much money at auction, although they were so rare that comparisons were always going to be pretty sketchy.

I became excessively excited when I saw the violin and had to stop myself in mid-flow with the client to manage his financial expectations. Not traditionally valuable I told him, but glorious instruments to people who love violins.

Scroll forward a few weeks and the violin sold in our June auction for over £70,000. The money was nice and I was thrilled for the vendor, but most importantly for me, I was so incredibly glad that the market has woken up to the beauty of this maker. I think for too long we have focussed more on the geography of the maker rather than the craftsmanship and his importance in the heritage of violin making. Groblicz will always have a special place in my nerd-bank of makers, as will an airport hotel in Kansas where I found him.

You can learn more about the Groblicz family via our Makers Archive

Our next auction is the Amati Affordable on the 24th and 25th of September – You can view the catalogue HERE