The accidental destruction of a rare eighteenth-century violin made by a student of Antonio Stradivari is bound to make worldwide headlines. And indeed this is exactly what happened in February this year.

The virtuoso violinist, David Garrett, smashed his $1m fiddle when he fell on it as he left London’s Barbican Centre. ‘I fell down a flight of stairs and landed on my violin case,’ says Garrett. ‘I heard a crunch and when I opened it up it was a total mess. It’s like losing a dear friend.’

The 236-year-old violin by Stradivari’s pupil, Giovanni Guadagnini, is currently in New York for an assessment of the major repair work that will take up to eight months to complete, at a cost of around $150,000. Garrett bought the 1772 violin in 2003 for $1m.
The incident has done much to focus renewed interest on the market values of fine violins in particular and musical instruments in general. And a further point of interest is: if a valuable instrument is badly damaged and then expertly repaired, does that instrument retain its original value and, perhaps more importantly, its original tone (given that the two are interlocked in any case)?