Violin Appraisal in the United States

We are a specialist auction house in London, and we appraise instruments for owners all over the world. From the United States there are three ways to do it.

Send photographs. This is how most people start, and it costs nothing. Fill in the online form, upload a few photographs, and one of our specialists looks at them properly. We aim to reply within three weeks, and an express service turns it round in three days. We need the front, the back, the scroll from both sides, the ribs, and the label if there is one, photographed through the f hole.

Come to a US valuation day. Our specialists travel to the United States to see instruments in person. This autumn we have held valuation days in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The next is in Philadelphia on Monday 23 November, at Sarah Peck Violins, 1241 Carpenter Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147. Appointments are free, and booking one means a proper conversation rather than a queue.

Visit us in London. If you are in London, bring the instrument to our office at Furlong House, 10a Chandos Street, London W1G 9DQ. Opening hours and directions are on our London office page.

Send photographs · Book a Philadelphia appointment

In America an appraisal often means a written document for insurance. That is a different job from the one most owners need first, so it is worth being clear.

An auction appraisal tells you what your instrument is likely to fetch at auction. Ours is free, and there is no obligation to sell.

An insurance appraisal tells you what it would cost to replace the instrument from a shop. That number is nearly always higher, because it answers a different question. We also write formal insurance valuations, for a fee we quote first. If you are not sure which you need, tell us when you get in touch.

Three things decide the value of a violin: who made it and whether that can be shown, its condition, and its provenance. We check each against what instruments like yours have actually sold for. The Amati Instrument Archive holds over 40,000 auction results across around 14,000 makers, and you can search it yourself for free.

A label is rarely the answer. Hundreds of thousands of German and French violins were made with a Stradivarius label inside, and nobody was being dishonest: it described the model. There is more on this in how much is my violin worth.

If you decide to sell, your instrument goes into one of our online auctions, open to bidders around the world. We hold at least ten sales a year, and our estimates and prices are in pounds sterling.

We will talk you through getting the instrument to London. We can arrange shipping from your home, and instruments consigned at a valuation day can travel back with our specialists. Once a sale is complete, we pay by bank transfer 35 working days after the auction.

How selling at auction works, and what it costs

We appraise the whole family, at no charge for any of them: viola appraisal · cello appraisal · bow appraisal.