Auctions at Amati

Affordable Auctions

Everything has a reserve of £10. The Amati Affordable auction provides an opportunity for neglected instruments to find a new home. These sales are unique within the industry and are hugely popular around the world.

Amati auctions

The perfect place to pick up a good quality violin for daily use, a child’s first instrument or a cello to restore, spare fingerboards, chin rests, pegs and tools.

Amati Affordable Auctions are run slightly differently from the Specialist Auctions. It is our usual practice not to put a reserve on items sold through an Amati Affordable Auction. In economists’ terms, we let the market decide what an instrument is worth.

We find that this works very well. The auctions are hugely popular with dealers and private customers alike. So, although all instruments in an Amati Affordable Auction have a starting price of £10, the great majority of the instruments sell for more than that, usually in the region of £200 to £5000. The highest price so far achieved for a single lot at an Amati Affordable Auction was £37,500.

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Buying and selling at auction

Buying at Auction

Amati sells violins, violas, cellos and bows for every budget and level of skill.

Buying at Auction

Stringed instruments at an Amati auction

Selling at Auction

At Amati, we make selling your instrument or bow as simple as possible.

Selling at Auction

Amati Affordable

We sell instruments made by great makers

Bergonzi, Vuillaume, Testore, Gagliano, Amati, Sannino, Cappichioni, Klotz, Tecchler, Pedrazzini, and Rogeri. Amati also sell bows by well-known makers, such as Sartory, Peccatte, Lamy.

We have achieved world records for a number of bows and instruments, including world records for a Vuillaume cello in 2014, a Tecchler violin, sold in 2014, and a Pedrazzini cello in 2016.

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Words from our customers

Thank you very much for your part in arranging our instrument valuation with Simon in Colchester yesterday. The experience greatly exceeded our expectations in the level of individual attention we received and care that he took over explaining the finer details. It was a very enjoyable and enlightening session; please pass on our thanks to him again,

Elaine Henson and Stephen Mitchell

Words from our customers

Many thanks again to you and your colleagues, especially Oswald for the work undertaken to achieve a very good outcome in the sale of my violin and bow.

Words from our customers

I took my violin and a couple of bows to be valued at The Amati Exhibition at The Langham. The service was absolutely excellent. I was also shown the collection of instruments being auctioned and James Buchanan and his colleagues imparted so much knowledge and were really helpful and very friendly. Highly recommended!