Contemporary or Antique? How to Choose a Fine Violin, Viola or Cello

If you ask us whether a contemporary or antique instrument is better, the answer is neither. We specialise in contemporary instruments, but we also handle important antique violins, violas and cellos, and the more of both we see, the less useful the old-versus-new argument becomes. There are exceptional instruments in both categories, and mediocre ones too.

For a player, the more useful comparison is practical. What condition is the instrument in? How certain is the attribution? What does your budget actually buy? How easy will the instrument be to maintain or adjust? And, most importantly, which one do you prefer to play?

Those questions lead to a much more interesting answer.

Condition

This is one of the clearest advantages of buying contemporary. A genuinely new instrument begins without a restoration history. There are no old cracks to assess, no soundpost or bass-bar patches, no replaced edges, no worm damage, no generations of previous repairs. You are starting with a structure whose history is known from the beginning.

That does not make a contemporary instrument maintenance-free. Seams can open, bridges wear, pegs need attention and soundposts require adjustment. Accidents happen too. But there is a considerable difference between maintaining an otherwise intact instrument and inheriting two hundred years of structural history.

With an antique instrument, repairs are not automatically a reason to walk away. Almost every important old instrument has had work done, and a well-executed restoration can remain stable for generations. What matters is where the damage occurred, how extensive it was, who repaired it and what effect it has on the instrument today. A soundpost crack in the back, for example, is not the same proposition as a small repaired table crack. A neck graft may simply be part of an old instrument's normal adaptation to modern playing. A poorly executed old repair is something else entirely.

This is why condition reports matter. The question is not simply whether an antique instrument has been repaired, but whether its present price properly reflects its condition and whether you are comfortable owning it. With a good contemporary instrument, that part of the decision is considerably simpler.

Authenticity and certificates

There is a similar distinction with attribution. If you buy a violin from a living maker, there should be very little mystery about who made it. The maker can provide a certificate, the provenance begins with them, and in many cases the instrument can still be shown directly to the person who built it. Our contemporary instruments, for example, are supplied with certification from the maker and a lifetime authenticity guarantee.

An antique instrument is different. A label is not proof of authorship. Attribution depends on expertise, comparison with known examples, provenance and, where useful, scientific analysis. At the higher end of the market, the certificate accompanying an instrument can therefore be extremely important.

This does not make antique buying unsafe. A properly authenticated instrument bought from a reputable source can have exceptionally strong attribution. It simply means that expertise forms a larger part of the transaction. With contemporary instruments, attribution is usually a fact. With antiques, it is a specialist judgement that needs to be substantiated.

Value for money

This is where the comparison becomes particularly interesting for players.

At around £20,000 to £30,000, we have sold violins by makers including Gonzalo Bayolo, Daniele Tonarelli, Marc Paquin and Peter Westerlund. At roughly £45,000 to £55,000, the same contemporary market reaches internationally established makers such as Philippe Girardin, Joseph Curtin and Gregg Alf.

In the antique market, those sums buy something quite different. Price in an old instrument has to carry not only its usefulness as a musical tool, but its maker, age, rarity, condition, provenance and desirability within an established historical market. As the importance of the maker increases, the difference becomes dramatic.

That does not mean the contemporary instrument is automatically "better value". It means you are buying different things. A professional musician spending £30,000 entirely in pursuit of sound, response and playability may find contemporary making gives them considerably more choice. Someone who also wants an important example of a historical school of making may quite reasonably spend more for that significance.

It is also worth separating price, resale demand and liquidity. A violin can be worth £50,000 without being easy to sell tomorrow. This is true of both old and new instruments. An established antique maker may have a mature secondary market, while a younger contemporary maker may have fewer buyers. On the other hand, the best living makers can have waiting lists and strong demand of their own.

Dealer policies can change the practical equation too. Eligible contemporary instruments bought from MyLuthier currently receive 100% of their purchase value when traded towards another eligible MyLuthier instrument. That makes upgrading easier, but it should not be confused with cash resale value on the open market.

The important thing is to understand exactly what you are paying for.

Access to the maker

This is an advantage of contemporary instruments that is easy to overlook. The person who made the instrument may still be available.

That can matter when commissioning. Depending on the maker, decisions about model, dimensions, wood, varnish and setup can be discussed before the instrument is built. Our commissions have included instruments made specifically for us, such as Sing Him Wong's 2025 Stradivari-inspired violin, where the setup was developed with comfort and ease of playing in mind. The relationship can continue after the instrument is finished too. A living maker understands their own work better than anyone and can often advise on setup, development and the player's changing requirements.

Some makers take this considerably further. Joseph Curtin's Ultralight violin, which we handled in 2023, allows the player to adjust string height and even the centring of the fingerboard with a key at the base of the neck. It is an unusually radical example, but it illustrates the broader point: contemporary makers can respond directly to how musicians actually use their instruments today.

None of this is impossible with an antique. A skilled restorer can transform the way an old instrument functions through setup, and much of our workshop work consists precisely of helping instruments perform at their best. The difference is that you cannot ask an eighteenth-century maker why they did something, or ask them to make the next one slightly differently.

Sound and individuality

Here the honest answer is that there is simply too much variation between individual instruments for age to tell you anything reliable.

We demonstrated this ourselves in a blind comparison between three violins priced at £9,000, £26,000 and approximately £200,000. Listeners were not told which was which. A clear majority preferred the third instrument, and many assumed it must be the £200,000 antique. It was the £9,000 Atelier MyLuthier violin.

That does not prove that a £9,000 violin is equivalent to a £200,000 one. It was one player, one passage, one recording and three individual instruments. What it demonstrates rather well is that price and age are poor substitutes for listening.

This is also why we built the Listening Room. Instruments can be compared using identical recordings, including in a blind mode where the maker's name is hidden. When you remove the label and price from the screen, preferences can become surprisingly clear.

Contemporary instruments are not one tonal category. Five modern violins from five different makers can differ enormously in response, resistance, brilliance, warmth and complexity. The same is true of antiques. There is no "old sound" any more than there is a single "modern sound".

History, provenance and character

The case for antique instruments should not be reduced to sound. There is something genuinely special about owning and playing an object that has survived for a century, or several. A Joseph Hill cello from around 1770 comes from an important English workshop tradition. A Vuillaume from 1855 is both a working musical instrument and an object made in one of the most influential workshops of nineteenth-century Paris.

The wear on a fine old instrument can be beautiful precisely because it was not created artificially. Varnish has changed, edges have softened and generations of players have left physical traces.

Provenance can add another layer. Our Bernardel cello from 1840 was kept by the same principal cellist of a major London orchestra for more than fifty years. Another Bernardel we handled had appeared on chamber music recordings and film soundtracks. Those histories become part of the pleasure of owning the instrument.

A contemporary maker can create extraordinarily beautiful work, and some do wonderful antiquing, but they cannot manufacture two hundred years of history. If that history matters to you, it is a perfectly legitimate reason to choose an antique.

What the same budget can actually buy

A few instruments we have handled make the trade-off unusually clear.

Around £30,000: viola

We sold a 2021 Paolo Vettori viola at £28,000. It was made by one of Italy's most established living makers, came directly from the maker's workshop, had no inherited restoration history and used 200-year-old reclaimed spruce documented by dendrochronology.

At almost exactly the same budget, we have handled a William Forster Jr viola from London, dated 1810, priced at £30,000.

These are both serious instruments. The decision between them is not really "good versus bad", or even "new versus old". It is whether you prefer the certainty, condition and direct maker relationship of the Vettori, or the history and character of a two-century-old English viola.

Around £60,000: cello

The comparison becomes even clearer with cellos. Our 2025 Paolo Vettori Santo Serafin model was £61,000. The Joseph Hill cello mentioned above, from around 1770, was priced at £60,000.

Almost identical figures, completely different propositions. The Vettori is the work of a leading contemporary maker at the height of his career, structurally modern and known from the moment it left the workshop. The Hill offers roughly 250 years of English cello-making history and the character of an old instrument by an established historical maker.

We have also sold a Pierre Hel cello from Lille, dated 1902, for £70,000. That sat only modestly above the Vettori in price, yet again offered a completely different reason for ownership.

These are the comparisons we find more useful than statements such as "modern instruments are better value" or "old instruments have more character". At the same price, what are you actually getting? That is the question.

Who should choose which?

For a student or young professional buying their first serious instrument, contemporary is often the most straightforward place to start. Your money is concentrated heavily on the maker's work and the instrument's playing qualities, condition is usually simple, attribution is clear and ongoing maintenance is relatively predictable.

For a professional whose absolute priority is sound and playability, we would not begin with age at all. Set a budget, put strong examples of both in the room and compare them properly. Blind listening can be particularly revealing.

For a player who wants a commission or has unusual physical or tonal requirements, a living maker has obvious advantages. Model, measurements and other details can sometimes be discussed before the instrument exists.

For someone who loves historical objects, provenance and old craftsmanship, an antique may offer something contemporary making fundamentally cannot. If looking at a beautifully preserved old instrument gives you pleasure every time you open the case, that matters.

For a buyer considering an important antique instrument, condition and authentication should be treated as central parts of the purchase rather than paperwork to examine afterwards.

And for anyone choosing between the two, our advice is simple. Do not buy the story before you play the instrument.

Try both.

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