Jamie Walton is in love. And the problem with the object of his affection is not so much that she’s out of his league as that she’s out of his price range. The 32-year-old cellist has fallen for a Guarneri, one of only a few remaining cellos made by the legendary Italian firm in the 18th century. And the particular model that he’s set his heart on will set him back a painful £890,000, or $1.7 million.
Given half a chance, Walton will rhapsodise for hours about the “soul, mystery and pure brilliance” of his wooden paramour. But for a professional musician he’s also proficient in a different vocabulary — the kind that speaks to venture capitalists rather than classical-music buffs. Having scraped together enough to take the instrument temporarily off the market, Walton is now in New York. His mission? To find enough backers to stump up the remaining cash within the month that he’s been given by the Guarneri’s owner.
Welcome to the thorny world of the antique instrument market: a world that’s ten times as costly (and ten times as murky) when it comes to the small clutch of 18th-century string instruments most sought after by players and dealers alike. If Walton is going to succeed in getting one of these treasures, he is going to have to put together a syndicate of rich backers to buy it, and then lend it to him.
In a market in which a top-class instrument will easily hit the price of Walton’s Guarneri, the basic premise of a syndicate isn’t new. Walton’s former cello, a Guadagnini (now on the market for a measly £660,000), was purchased and then lent to him in the same way. “It was owned by a syndicate of which I was a member,” Walton explains, “but the main shareholders, who had 75 per cent, only wanted to secure it for five years and at the end of that period it would either be sold or there was the option of me buying them out. But I hit 30 and knew I needed something different.”
If he’s to get his Guarneri he needs to offer a different argument, too — one that isn’t based on pure philanthropy. But he does have some powerful facts at his disposal: with the value of a Stradivarius violin or a Guarneri cello soaring year on year, antique instruments now count as valuable investments — and are significantly more stable than other high-earning ventures. According to Walton: “Someone has already invested because he knows he will leave his share of the instrument in his will for his daughter and it will have accrued an enormous value.”
It’s in America that these arrangements are now most common. The biggest dealers now advertise their financial potential. One 18-page pamphlet produced by the firm of Dietmar Machold recommends “diversification”, “insurance” and “financial rewards” as the primary reasons for investing. “Social responsibility” comes rather lower down.
But the strategy is working. Machold enabled the purchase of a $3.5 million Guarneri violin, bought for Robert McDuffie, thanks to a consortium of 16 partners that included, among others, the commissioner of the National Football League and the bass player of R.E.M. For an instrument that cost $250,000 back in 1975, they clearly reckoned they were on to a winner. So it proved: by 2020 it should be worth $20 million. And should the worst happen — damage, fire, theft — the insurance policy, usually paid for by the player at about 0.2 per cent of the worth of the instrument a year, covers the full value of the instrument. In contrast with the fine-art market, however, no Strad is considered so valuable that it has to be kept under lock and key.
Is this just a win-win situation, for investor and musician? That depends on whom you speak to. The more developed this system has become in America, the more obligations there are. Unless McDuffie’s concert earnings yield enough cash to buy out his backers, he’ll have to return the instrument in 2023, when it will be sold for profit. In addition, he’s required to play at least two private concerts a year for his backers.
The benign-sounding Stradivari Society (actually administered by the Chicago dealers Bein & Fushi) similarly requires an unspecified number of private recitals and concerts for patrons and “society supporters” from their beneficiaries. For the lovesick Walton, that’s fine. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
Nigel Brown, the British stockbroker who pioneered the practice of consortium-purchase in the 1980s (thanks to him Nigel Kennedy was able to borrow, and then buy, his Strad), isn’t convinced. “I don’t want musicians to be performing monkeys and have to play so many evenings a year to a load of drunken people. And they don’t have any real security of tenure.”
Brown, who is searching for backers for the young violinists Jennifer Pike and Matthew Trusler among others, prefers to call interested parties “contributors” rather than investors. “I only care in so far as it relates to the musicians. The trouble is that everything that gives this market its stability — that there aren’t people trying to speculate — is something that these people are in danger of undoing.” Put even more baldly, if you want a fast buck, think again. “There’s more to it than money,” says Brown. “When you buy into this you are getting into something that’s priceless.”
This is the grey area where business fades out and pure passion comes in — something that the violinist Anthony Marwood recognises after his own experiences trying to get a £1.6 million Bergonzi. “There’s a lot of money to be made by dealers — and the hold they have over you is that we fall in love with these wonderful instruments.”
The best backers, needless to say, are the ones who understand the musicians as well as the numbers. “They’re investing their money wisely and they know it, but they’re also personally interested — and proud.”
Marwood was lucky. A chance encounter with a fan in New Zealand, Christopher Marshall, led to an offer to become Marwood’s patron. Marshall then took charge of organising the resulting syndicate, who allow him use of the Bergonzi until he is 70. Any financial advice he can offer Walton? “No, I can’t think of anything. That’s the trouble — we’re not businessmen. But I do feel like I’m having an amazing relationship with my violin. They really do have a life-force”.
For Walton failure is not an option. “It’s not because I want to own a cello, it’s because I want to play fantastic music on a fantastic cello — music that deserves one. But sometimes I do think: why don’t I just play the bloody flute?”
