Last October, we left my mother’s violin in the hands of the fine instrument curator at Christie’s in New York,  who sent it off, as he said he would, to have dendrochronology studies done on it by colleagues in London. The violin was duly shipped there and the studies done, with interesting news both pro and con in terms of its history and value.

The study of the wood of the violin – the dendrochronology process itself – is  fascinating, and it reveals some other interesting possible facts about the violin. They matched it to the wood grain samples in their databases and concluded that  it is definitely quite old, possibly even late seventeenth century. And as my family and others have known all along, it is apparently unequivocally NOT a 100%  Guarnerius. The label it has inside the f-hole  remains something of a mystery but the feeling from all the experts who looked at it is that it is not from the workshop of Guarnerius, but the wood is similar to that used by the Guarnerius atelier. Interesting, but bye-bye fantasies of selling Mom’s fiddle to Joshua Bell for gazillions of dollars. However, such is the state of classical music that I just read somewhere that Joshua was able to play in the New York subway for hours with no one recognizing him or, apparently, noticing that this cat was pretty bloody good for a street musician, so maybe that plan wouldn’t have worked after all. Plus we know he already has a perfectly reasonable Strad, maybe even several! Onward and upward, I guess.

We had left the violin with Christie’s as they had told us that their next fine instruments auction was planned for sometime in November, and they planned to put the violin up for sale in that auction, as they would have a better handle on its provenance by then with the dendrochronology studies having been completed. And someone seems to have gotten around to playing it during its New York-London sojourn,  because it had been noted along the way that it has a wonderful sound.  Since my feeling about  the whole escapade as been that it would be terrific to get the violin back  into the hands of someone who will actually play it and bring it back to life, this was good news. We figured we would plan a trip to New York to be present for the auction, as much for curiosity as anything else (and of course we did take a look at the Met opera schedule), but got on with our lives as we figured it was safe and sound till then in Christies’ vault, and kind of let sleeping violins lie.

However, a few weeks ago Arnold  received an unexpected call from the folks at Christie’s. The bad news: It now turns out that both they and Sotheby’s have apparently decided to get out of the fine instruments business, and the fall auction has been cancelled, and would we please come and get our violin out of their vault. The good news:  Two gentlemen from Sotheby’s in London, experienced fine instruments experts, had left the firm and started their own specialized auction house for fine instruments, and they were very much interested in seeing our violin. Could we possibly arrange to be in New York in late June when they would be visiting from London and bring the violin to them for examination? Presumably, if they liked it, they would pick it up from us and put into THEIR next auction in London, coming up in a few months. It took us a nanosecond to decide to do this – first of all, the violin is far better off with these folks than it is with us languishing — and enduring a house move — with us here in Mexico, and it gives us a great excuse to take care of some business and have a little fun (I of course need various and sundry indispensable items for the new house, important things like a new kitchen timer as mine just bit the dust) at the same time.

So off to Nueva York we go, and we’ll get back from there just a couple of weeks before when our closing on the new house is supposed to  take place. The violin will now embark, one expects, on its second trip to London while we manage only to get to New York for a few very busy days, and then race home to deal with more immediate domestic matters. We don’t seem to be able to get the “nip off to London” thing right (Violin 2, us zero) but I am grateful for whatever I can get at this point.