Some purchases, by their very nature, turn even a strong person's stomach into knots. Buying a house or a car can have that effect. But now imagine that the rules of the buying game are suddenly shrouded in mystery: no blue book, no Consumer Reports, no MSRP sticker in the window. Welcome to the mysteries of buying (or selling) a stringed instrument.

2. Through long observation, countless anecdotes, and much personal experience, the editors and staff of Strings have been aware for many years of what might politely be called the idiosyncrasies of the stringed instrument trade. Players recount horror stories and ask simple but challenging questions about finding, identifying, appraising, and evaluating instruments and bows. Dealers often bemoan the perceived naiveté of their customers and, with equal frequency, question the competence or legitimacy of some of their competitors. Instrument and bow makers, whose historical dependence on dealers has been radically diminished in recent years, find themselves grappling with a host of business issues that were largely unknown to their artisan predecessors.

3. Must it be so confusing? Why is there so little reliable information available, and so much mistrust among all parties? Are string players doomed to lifelong anxiety whenever the question of buying and selling arises? Who, if anyone, should take the responsibility for educating the next generation on these subjects?

4. Musicians and instrument dealers are, like it or not, life partners. So it's no accident that these sound like the kinds of questions marriage counselors ask their clients. But is there such a counselor in the house? Risky as it sounds, we at Strings have decided to volunteer for the job

5. First, however; we decided it would be prudent to augment our empiric understanding of the string market with some hard data. We firmly believe that gathering and publishing information about the vagaries of buying and selling will be helpful and useful to everyone concerned. This article is the first such attempt to share what we've learned and open up the dialogue. (On page 21, you'll find a description of the research method we used.) And let us clarify from the start that the data we've succeeded in gathering thus far is the mere beginning of all we -- and you -- need to know. We're counting on you to tell us how useful this opening report is to you, what else you want to know, and how willing you are to share your knowledge and experience with us and your fellow readers of Strings.

6. Now, on to the subject at hand. Let's imagine you're ready to go shopping for an instrument (we could as easily say a bow, strings, a case, or some other accessory.) If you are like many players you quickly run into a fundamental problem. "The market is horribly intimidating," says one Midwestern cellist. "There's no question about that."

7. She is speaking primarily about dealerships, so let's begin there. Just mention the word "dealer;" and most players trot out the same tale: they can't afford what's available, they can't find out enough about instrument pricing, they don't trust the dealers. Knowing (and even understanding) full well the distrust many players feel toward them, dealers are nonetheless as resentful as anyone of falling under a blanket stereotype. Maker and dealer Rafael Carraba of Seattle says he has spent more than a decade building up his business' reputation and trying to maintain a happy base of clients. "If players come in and don't know much about me," he says, "there's a wall that goes up, an immediate distrust. They're looking at you and reading your body language. They lump you in with the rest."

8. One market factor is that the pool of stringed-instrument players keeps growing, while the number of old instruments extant has remained the same (or dwindled). There are also more dealers, running businesses of varying sizes. "Most old-instrument business used to be done by a handful of people," notes William Lee. His business, William Harris Lee Co. of Chicago, deals in some old instruments but also sells new instruments built by the several dozen makers he employs. "Now you have so many quasi-dealers, wheeler-dealer types, that it's affected the market. I think the level of expertise with a lot of dealers is not what it should be, and that puts questions in the players' minds. Also, it's very competitive among the dealers; they're a lot more cutthroat, since they all need that business to exist."

9. But players don't believe that competition among dealers translates into better customer service. The Midwestern cellist (who did not want her name used), a young professional who bought a contemporary instrument last year; learned a brutal lesson when she began her search by looking at antique cellos. She did not have an unlimited budget, but she was prepared to spend as much as $60,000 for an old cello with a good sound and reliable playing characteristics. However; she says, "$60,000 does not impress a big dealer. That's a problem." For that sum, she felt she could neither find an appropriate cello nor find a dealer who would treat her like a valued customer.

10. Even players who can afford to spend more nonetheless report that, though they may get more respect, they still don't get the whole story. "They wouldn't tell me anything about my instrument," says one professional (who asked not to be named because she currently has an instrument on the market). She recently spent more than $100,000 at an East Coast dealership for her antique instrument, bought as both a professional tool and an investment. "They were very reluctant to tell me how it had been used, which was extremely disappointing. It would be nice to know--was it in a closet, was it played by a professional, where was it during the wars? They either couldn't tell me or didn't know or didn't think it was important enough to find out. I asked them several times." The instrument also came with no papers of authentication other than those of the dealer who sold it to her. "They were very reluctant to tell me whether the papers were lost or they never got them. I was wondering what the truth was."

11. For students and amateur players, with less money to spend or; often, less confidence in their own judgment, these feelings of alienation are intensified. (Numerous players told us tales of the intimidation they and their parents felt when they bought their first or second instruments in high school.) Amateur cellist Larry Gockel of Seattle runs a community music school, the Music Center of the Northwest, with his violist wife. They're in a position to recommend local shops to the players who come to their school, and they only send them to shops that make every customer feel comfortable. "There are shops that are interested in working with people and what they have," says Gockel. If someone wants a cello for $100, these shops will find one. They will not tell the player that a $100 cello is an unworthy instrument."

12. Marcia Bean Rhoads, a professional violist in Madison, Wisconsin, is a teacher of both public school and private students. For their sake and her own, she appreciates one local dealer, Ralph Rabin, who shows an interest in his clients' opinions. "He seems to have a lot more confidence in his customers," she says. "He's not telling you, 'Here's a nice viola.' He says, 'I think this one shows some promise, what do you think?"

13. But all too often, according to our Midwestern cellist, players and dealers seem to be speaking different languages. "The first question was, 'What is your price range?"' she recalls of her business interactions last year; "The second question would be, 'What type of instrument are you looking for?' And I don't really know what that question means. I could say, 'I want an old Italian instrument,' and that would signal that I didn't know what I was talking [about given my price range]. I tended to answer the question with, 'I want something with a clearer tone, better response, more focused sound.' I would talk about playing properties that I wanted.

14. "And what I realized, especially with the big dealers, is that that didn't make sense to them. They're not players. Some of them used to be players, or they hang out with players -- but they're in the antique business, not the performance business. Having played the same cello for 20 years, I really knew what I wanted. I had every confidence I had a certain sound and feel that I was seeking. But that's not the vocabulary that they deal with. They deal with Italian versus French versus English [instruments]. So that's where the communication would start to break down -- what I was saying obviously did not get me respect from them."

15. Philip Kass, an associate at the dealership of William Moennig and Son in Philadelphia, counters that quantifiable elements are all a dealer can work with. "In the end, when you sell [an instrument], it's on the condition and authenticity and appearance," he says. "They're mostly objective. The sound is subjective. You can find one player who'll think an instrument is great, and the next will think it's awful; there's no way of predicting this. But if it's a genuine example by Maker X, that's an investment that will appreciate in value. If it doesn't have the authenticity and condition to begin with, it's not going to get any better. That's our view from the business perspective. We are responsible that [the instrument]is healthy and that it's by the maker it's said to be by, because those are the objective factors that we put down on paper when we sell it. If it [also] sounds great, it will just sell faster."

16. Maker and dealer Michael Becker agrees that an instrument's provenance and condition are the most important aspects of setting its sale price. Speaking from his experience as a shop owner in Park Ridge, Illinois, Becker says, "Although sound is important, it's not as relevant in pricing because sound can be changed. You can cut a different bridge, you can change the angle of the neck--you can do a lot of things to radically change the sound of the instrument."

17. At the same time, however, he understands why players are frustrated by the market, and why they don't trust dealers. "I think, to a certain extent, the dealers themselves are responsible," he says. "Not by their collusion or an attempt to rape the public -- that's not it at all. But there's an aura in owning an old instrument, like owning an old painting. Otherwise it would be difficult for dealers to sell things for the prices they do. It's like going to a good French restaurant; you don't want to be treated like you're at McDonald's. But when the shop has a doorman that opens the door for you when you walk in, it goes beyond just being a genteel host and providing a good level of service."

18. As with most communication gaps, however, this one has been perpetuated by both sides. Many players want to belong to the "in crowd" when it comes to stringed-instrument knowledge and lore. In addition, it matters if they have a good relationship with the salesperson. It doesn't matter if you like your car salesman or the person who fits your shoes at the department store; you know you may never see them again. But when you buy an instrument, you know you will probably be back later to get a crack repaired, have the varnish touched up, or ask about some other repair or service. So players often buy into the same highbrow attitude they complain about, as our cellist admits. "The atmosphere [of some shops] is so snooty!" she says. "But you want to be part of their club. You don't want to alienate them."

THE PRICE IS RIGHT? Mysteries of the Market(Top) (STRINGS MAGAZINE -- 11/96)

19. Attitudes aside, many players aren't convinced they're getting the straight scoop on one key point: why instruments cost what they do. A dealer can tell them that provenance and condition are the most important factors, but players don't know how to translate that into dollars. "It's really annoying," says the cellist, who says she couldn't find a reliable way to research the market before she went shopping for her instrument. "You can't really make sense of the research you try to do with auction prices, because you don't know where the dealers bought it -- which auction -- and you don't know how much work they did on it, or the condition of the instrument when it was sold at auction.

20. "So you really are at sea when you go to a dealer. I felt completely at their mercy as far as their pricing strategy, and I feel they're purposely mysterious. You can't say to them, why are you charging $80,000 for this Forster when they typically go at auction for $30,000 or $40,000? They don't want to have conversations like that. I tried a couple of times, but it's like it's dirty to talk about money."

21. Even when prices are lower, buyers frequently report confusion. Rhoads recalls an experience one of her students had recently. "The family was quoted one price over the phone, then they got [to the shop] and the prices were $300 more even to start. I think they had advertised a sale, or they just had one instrument [at the low price]. But the family was very confused when they got there."

22. Dealers say they try to explain to customers how they arrive at the prices they charge. "It's a complicated issue," says Jeffrey Holmes, vice president of the rare instruments department at Shar Products Co. in Ann Arbor, Michigan. "You've got the appraisal value and the natural investment factor of the instrument, and the use of the instrument. They all have to be balanced." Holmes says he researches the market, basing prices on the maker, the condition of the instrument, and how much similar examples are selling for at auction and at other shops. "I'm a member of the Appraisers Association," he says, "and one of their rules is that when you're doing an appraisal you should try to come up with three sales that support the number that you're dealing with. It's the same as when you're buying a house and they do a real estate appraisal. They have to find houses in the area that are actually sold at the prices you're quoting."

23. Since most players don't have the resources to study the market thoroughly themselves, they try to get multiple opinions about the value of the instrument they are considering. Different dealers may give them radically different answers -- some because they'll try to undermine a competitor's sale, and many because they have a different level of knowledge about or affinity for the given maker's work. As Becker points out, it's not like assessing a new car; "You either want a Chevy or you don't want a Chevy," he says. "But with a violin, there's something that you can't put your finger on. That's why there's an aura about the violin business, because it isn't objective." 

BUYING NEW Mysteries of the Market(Top) (STRINGS MAGAZINE -- 11/96)

24. Very few people -- not even our critical cellist -- believe that every dealer, big or small, is dishonest. But the difficulties of doing individual research, the fears the word "dealer" conjures up, and the scarcity of good, affordable old instruments has opened up a niche that contemporary makers are filling for many players. These makers are still battling the romance of the antique instrument, which holds great appeal for much of the string community. But, after comparing the high prices of even damaged or poor-sounding antique instruments with the lower prices of high-quality contemporary ones, more and more players -- at both professional and amateur levels -- are buying new.

24. One advantage is that the intimidation factor fades when dealing with most individual makers. (As Becker puts it, "How many contemporary makers wear ties in the workshop?") However, the increasingly personal nature of the transaction can bring its own discomforts. Our Midwestern cellist finally abandoned the search for an antique and bought a contemporary instrument for substantially less money. But while looking at new instruments, she found the justifications for their prices to be just as mysterious. And, she adds, I found it really difficult to deal with makers. You go to their shop, and they have one cello that you can try. They're watching you, because it's their baby. It's hard to give it back and say, 'The baby has purple splotches all over it.' It's really, really hard to tactfully say that it's not what you're looking for."

THE TABOO SUBJECT Mysteries of the Market(Top) (STRINGS MAGAZINE -- 11/96)

25. [Teacher Commissions] Given the complexity of buying a stringed instrument, it's no wonder many players are desperate for advice from a source they can trust. For many, this source is their teacher. But adding teachers to the market mix brings us to another passionate argument, one that raised hackles in our survey responses and in conversations with people throughout the trade: teacher commissions.

26. Nearly everyone has heard about them, even if they haven't personally paid or received one. If a teacher helps a student pick out an instrument and the seller then pays the teacher, that teacher has received a commission. It usually comes in the form of a check, the amount being some percentage of the sale price of the instrument. Few people would argue that teachers who help students make such an important purchase deserve some repayment for their time and expertise. Indeed, some teachers charge their students up front, requesting compensation by the hour, for example, just as they would for music-lesson time.

27. The problem arises when payment comes from the seller rather than the student. Sometimes teachers badger shops for payment after a sale, and sometimes shops extend the offer. Unscrupulous teachers can give advice to students based on the money they can make off a sale, rather than on the quality of the instrument or the student's needs. The student effectively pays a hidden fee, the seller's commission cost having been built into the final price of the instrument. The danger to the consumer becomes especially acute if the student has no idea that the teacher is being rewarded for bringing in a sale -- which is often the case.

28. Cellist Susan Moyer, who plays in the Florida Philharmonic in Fort Lauderdale, learned about the practice at an early age, because her mother was a private violin teacher. One year, one of her students bought an instrument from a large East Coast dealership. "And a check arrived in the mail," Moyer remembers, "with a little thank-you note from the shop. [My mother] was incensed. She signed [the check] over to the parents of the student."

29. "A lot of teachers decide not to take commissions, and I respect that," says Lee. "But I know, teachers who have spent, literally, days looking for instruments for people, driving around to see things. That all takes time, and there should be a way to compensate them for that. I would say most of the time [students know it's happening]. I don't really make an issue about it. If I thought there was a teacher doing it behind [students'] backs and not doing it objectively -- if they were just in it for the commission -- I wouldn't deal with them."

30. But such assurances do little to comfort the wary parent or student. "There are a lot of teachers who benefit from this who don't want to say that they do," notes Galen Wixson, the executive director of the American String Teachers Association. "Who loses? The students do, because they're paying too much for the instruments."

31. However, he adds, ASTA does not take a stand on the controversy. "We debated taking a position on that within the last year," he says. "We've chosen to stay out of that right now. We want to do some more thinking about it, because it's a delicate issue."

32. Delicate indeed. The trust built over years is shattered if a student realizes a teacher has been dishonest about advice given and benefits received. Suspicions players already harbor about dealers are intensified. And businesses that don't pay commissions bitterly resent those that do, believing they would have more customers if teachers weren't steering students elsewhere in order to make a profit.

33. The situation is a notoriously difficult one to discuss openly, let alone solve. Few teachers or businesses want to admit to the practice. But there is no question that it occurs. We asked all of the businesses participating in our anonymous survey whether they paid commissions to teachers, and 23 percent answered "yes" (another 15 percent did not respond at all). Of that group, 80 percent answered "no" when asked whether students were aware of the practice.

34. Like ASTA, the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers (AFVBM) has taken no official stand on the practice. Maker and dealer Michael Becker is the organization's president. When asked whether the group could call for a ban, or even for a publicized and regulated teacher-commission rate, Becker replies, "We are not in a position where we want to mandate how everyone should run his or her own business. And even if we did take a position, how could we ever enforce it? There's no way to regulate who's paying what. Some firms pay larger [commissions] than others. Some firms write checks, some pay teachers in other ways -- maybe exchanging merchandise. There's no level playing field. I don't see any solution for it."

CLOSING THE GAP Mysteries of the Market(Top) (STRINGS MAGAZINE -- 11/96)

35. In spite of all the problems, however, clients and businesses in the string-playing trade are ripe to be friends -- or are friends already. Ask our "typical" maker to name the easiest and best strategy for marketing his business, and he will emphatically respond, "word-of-mouth referrals." Businesses know the value of a happy customer who will tell his or her friends in the orchestra where to find good service.

36. What's the toughest aspect of today’s market? Wearing all the hats -- dealing with advertising, marketing, bookkeeping, and other aspects of running a shop while also finding time to do actual building and repair. "The marketing [is hardest]," was the succinct summary of one respondent in our survey. "We are not salesmen." With that in mind, we asked several violin-making schools whether they offer today's students any courses in business to complement what they learn about making instruments.

37. "It's one of the things I thought was missing [when I studied at the Chicago School of Violin Making]," replies Fred Thompson of Thompson & Seman. Besides co-owning his own full-service shop in Skokie, Illinois, Thompson now teaches advanced students at the Chicago school. "There's certainly a lot involved in trying to run a shop that we didn't anticipate when we started up," he says. However, he adds, "business training" is a very broad topic. He says that the best approach for violin-making schools would be to advise students about how, as individuals, they can market their own instruments, rather than how to set up a shop.

38. "I cannot see [such training] happening in the near future at our school, but it would be very good," says Anne Elkins, the administrator at the Violin Making School of America in Salt lake City. Most students, she adds, do learn some business skills during their summer break, when they work as apprentices in shops.

39. "We actually do a kind of general small business course, almost as a preventive," says Walter McDonald, the associate director of the North Bennet Street School in Boston. He says that last year was the first time such a class was generally available; it covered such basics as writing a business plan and handling tax questions, record keeping, and cash flow management. The school instructs artisans of many kinds -- jewelry and furniture makers, for example, as well as luthiers -- and, he adds, "I don't actually remember any violin student participating."

40. In fact, at least one survey respondent commented that "'marketing' does not apply to art." Nevertheless, you can and should expect an increasing level of business acumen on the part of makers and other businesses. Professional organizations such as the AFVBM and the Violin Society of America are trying to help makers provide better service to their player-clients; they're providing an increasing amount of business and professional training at their annual meetings. The AFVBM's Becker says the group holds seminars on bookkeeping, computers and the Internet, and other business aides, as well as presenting workshops on technical issues. And the group's annual "Players Meet Makers" exhibition (which drew a large crowd last year at the Smithsonian) aims to expose players to the quality of contemporary instruments and thus promote the craft. "It's important that makers are aware that these avenues are out there," says Becker. "It's one way of reaching a broader base of clients."

41. Another way may be to provide the kind of ongoing education some players are looking for. It turns out that our "typical" maker is not very confident about his customer's knowledge base. Using a scale of 1(very poor) to 10 (excellent), he ranks most types of players -- teachers and professionals as well as students -- at 3 to 5 in terms of their knowledge about how to select their own instruments and/or bows. When it comes to how much players know about caring for their instruments and bows, our maker places them at 4 or 5. He feels the same way about their ability to choose a repairer or restorer. This means that he considers most people to have average to poor knowledge about how to care for the items he sells them.

42. "People use furniture polish on their violins," notes Becker. "People clean rosin off their strings with alcohol, which will also dissolve the varnish. There are all these things that people know how to do, but shouldn't do."

43. The question is, who teaches a player what good instrument care is? The teacher, answered players, business people, and teachers themselves. But according to Becker, the best businesses also take on the responsibility of giving at least some sort of elementary education to the buyer. "You should inform them that the instrument shouldn’t be too close to heat or humidity, as just one example. It's not like selling a loaf of bread and that's the end of it, even if the buyer gets indigestion or poppy seeds under his dentures. This business involves a little bit more than that! I'm not saying any [makers] should give away their time or money, but when somebody buys something from you, that should be the beginning of a relationship, and not just a financial relationship."

SIGNS OF CHANGE Mysteries of the Market(Top) (STRINGS MAGAZINE -- 11/96)

44. We have touched on just a few of the "hottest" debates in the marketplace, according to our survey and interviews. We are aware that our study sample was small and we anticipate that future surveys will garner more responses and begin to build up a truly informative base of statistical knowledge. Meanwhile, however, nothing we learned refuted the original premise -- that the stringed-instrument market is confusing for players and controversial for sellers. The question now is whether change is possible.

45. Nothing remains the same forever, not even the world of stringed instruments. Contemporary makers are earning well-deserved reputations, businesses are taking advantage of modern marketing methods, and string players are still on the increase, perhaps becoming more vocal about their needs and concerns. Becker says he has seen a distinct rise in the level of positive cooperation within the trade since the AFVBM was founded in the early 1980s. "I think it's much to the benefit of the public," he says. "I think it's much easier to get an objective opinion, for example. I will refer clients to other people for opinions, and there was a time when that would never have happened."

46. So perhaps it is not the case that the violin family's wonderfully romantic history, which none of us wants to turn our backs on, is so deeply entangled with the marketplace that any change would be like switching on the lights in a darkened movie theater. Help us find out. Tell us what further information you need. Help us understand those quirks -- good and bad -- of the stringed-instrument marketplace that give it its unique character. Share your knowledge and experience with us and each other, whether you are a maker; dealer, or retailer, a professional player, student, or teacher.

47. And use this book. The stringed-instrument market is a personal one, and you want to find someone you can talk to. Good business people do want to educate you and share their knowledge with you. They want any questions of trust to evaporate as much as you do -- and that can happen. With nearly 2,000 businesses in the listings, this reference surely contains the maker, dealer, repairer, or retailer with whom you will feel comfortable. (And if you've already found such businesses, make sure they are listed here, and tell us about them if they're not.) Then, we hope, you'll find that while the market for stringed instruments remains multifaceted and complex, it can become less terrifying.*

THE MARKET SURVEY Mysteries of the Market(Top) (STRINGS MAGAZINE -- 11/96)

48. Today's consumers know the rules of the game when they want to buy most products. They know they can bargain for a car at most dealerships, but not for clothes at the department store. They don't begrudge their real estate agent his or her commission. They raise a ruckus when utility and insurance bills balloon, and they turn to consumer guides for help with expenditures ranging from computer purchases to college tuitions. But confusion and suspicion permeate any discussion of the stringed-instrument marketplace, for buyers and sellers alike. "Cutthroat competition is ruining my livelihood," businesses tell us. "I don't know whom to trust," say players. It is true that this market, representing a complex intersection of history, culture, and commerce, will never be as straightforward as buying and selling groceries. But need it be as rife with doubt and mistrust as it is?

49. Early last year we set out to alleviate some of the confusion by asking nearly 1,000 businesses in the stringed-instrument trade, randomly chosen from the November 1996 Strings Resource Guide, to participate in a market survey. We wanted to gather facts about pricing, clientele, and pervasive attitudes that, to the best of our knowledge, have not been compiled anywhere else. We also wanted to start an ongoing discussion about many of the problematic areas of the trade. We received some fascinating and impassioned responses, and we hope we will receive more in people the future (we intend to repeat the survey regularly). It is our goal to provide players and members of the trade with an increasingly useful resource for understanding the complex marketplace that is so important to us all, and we need everyone's help in order to accomplish that goal.

50. Here's how the survey worked. It was anonymous; no names or addresses were solicited, and an independent research firm sent out the questionnaires and tabulated the responses. We know that just over half the questionnaires went to domestic businesses, and most (85 percent) of our responses came from within the United States, so most of our conclusions are based on the domestic market. We received 190 domestic responses, a response rate of 35 percent (results are accurate to plus or minus 6 percent). Thus, in its first year, the survey has primarily provided a starting point for rumination and dialogue. We are trying to raise questions and suggest ways to approach those questions, not hand out hard-and-fast answers. We hope players and business people alike will continue the discussion, with us and with each other.

PORTRAIT OF A MAKER Mysteries of the Market(Top) (STRINGS MAGAZINE -- 11/96)