Antiques Roadshow

GUEST: I picked it up about three years ago from a boutique in Santa Monica, where I live.

The bow came in the case.

Didn't pay a lot for it, but I just appreciated its color.

APPRAISER: Mm.

GUEST: I appreciated that it had a nice feel to it.

APPRAISER: Do you remember what you paid for it?

GUEST: Eighty dollars.

APPRAISER: $80, okay.

There's three things that I look for...

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: ...in determining that an instrument has significance.

And this particular violin has a correct label on the inside, it says "Auguste Falisse."

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: And he was a Belgian maker.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: And this violin is dated 1917.

The label is absolutely original.

So the first thing that I think of when I judge the importance of a particular violin maker is their training.

And this guy's training is impeccable.

He was, uh, from Mirecourt, France, which is a hotbed of violin-making.

He was born in 1883, he died in 1951.

So he trained in Mirecourt, France, with some dynamite makers.

Number two is that he won awards.

So there is mention on the label that he won this award, the Concours de Paris, in 1912.

He entered his violin into this competition, and it was judged to have a better sound than a Stradivari violin.

GUEST: Really?

APPRAISER: Yes.

GUEST: Oh, my gosh.

APPRAISER: Isn't that remarkable?

So that's number two.

Number three is just the quality of the craftsmanship.

The top is made out of spruce, and the back and the ribs and the neck and the pegbox are made out of flamed maple.

I would say 99% of all violins have a spruce belly and a back of maple.

The bow is a French bow made out of Pernambuco wood, which only grows in Brazil.

You can see that the frog is made out of ebony.

GUEST: Mm-hmm-- oh, yeah.

APPRAISER: And it's mounted in sterling silver.

And the bow would have been made around the same time as the violin, right around 1915-1917.

It doesn't have the maker's name on it, but it's an important bow, and it's a beautifully made bow, and for sure, it's a French bow.

So I'm going to put a conservative value on it, as is, in a retail setting, of $4,000.

GUEST: For the bow?

APPRAISER: For the bow.

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: And the violin...

GUEST: (laughing): I was thinking $150.

APPRAISER: The violin is a professional-caliber violin.

As you can see, it's not ready to be played right this instant.

And so, as-is value would be $22,000.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: And I think that it would take about $1,000, maybe $1,500, to get it really in tip-top playing condition.

And if you put the work into it, it could have as much as a $25,000 retail value.

GUEST: That's very, very good.

It's a lot more than I thought.

A lot more.

APPRAISER: Yeah.

GUEST: I mean, I was, I was thinking six.

Thousand.

APPRAISER: S, oh, $6,000?

GUEST: Yeah.