Renting?

July 1, 2006 at 05:33 PM · I believe that Johnson String Instruments Has a nice Master Violin Rental program. It isn't too expensive I think it is: $252 for 6 months. Hope it helps!

July 1, 2006 at 05:51 PM · It would be nice if there was, but most violin dealers would not be willing to do something like that because there is too much risk. The violin might get stolen, there might be an accident, etc. Something might happen with a $20,000 instrument and you've only rented for two months and paid the violin dealer $250 a month. $500-$20,000= -$19,500. That would be a huge loss.

Anyways, if luthiers rented out expensive violins, then everybody would want to rent $100,000 violins. I'm not saying that everybody does not deserve a $100,000 violin, but that would give way to all sorts of fraud. People would "lose" $100,000 violins on purpose. Who would be held responsible? You would. And what if someone stole that instrument from you and you don't have the money to pay it back? You would go to jail.

July 1, 2006 at 10:08 PM · [Richard you may have some kind of accidental HTML error in your first message, you might want to edit it and check.]

I believe the relevant word, as yet unheard here, is "insurance".

Rental contracts for higher-dollar instruments require the renter to insure the instrument, and doing so is not that expensive or difficult, depending of course on exactly how expensive an instrument we're talking about. I believe a $20,000 instrument would be within the minimum coverage for Heritage's instrument policy.

July 2, 2006 at 07:09 PM · I know that where I live it is possible to rent the instrument and eventually the rental pays for the violin. You can buy that violin or you can buy another one and you pay a levee for maintenance depending on the value of the violin.

So it's like you are paying for the violin in installments. For sure it encourages people to buy the violin (or at least another one from the same store) after investing so much money in the rental (not sure how much the rental costs).

I think this is all done to some degree on a trust basis. A more "trustworthy" person will be privy to a more expensive violin, and a less honourable person to a less expensive violin. It's all up to the violinmaker's discretion in the end.

I know that I took my violin and bow to be repaired and as a replacement for the few days he gave me another violin and bow worth 4 times mine!!

I wish the whole world was run by the "honour" system and filled with honourable people! Unfortunately, I know this is not the case...

July 3, 2006 at 04:15 PM · I checked it Andres and when i clicked on it went to the appropriate website... if it doesnt work for yous then just go to

www.Johnson-inst.com

~*~Violins Make the World go Round~*~

July 3, 2006 at 04:49 PM · Richard I was referring to a formatting issue which has since cleared up. :-)

July 3, 2006 at 04:47 PM · Larry's rental experience is typical for normal rental programs. The pricier instruments are in a different catagory, if for no other eason than the amount of inventory dollars this would require from the shop. Many shops have between 500 and 1500 rental instruments, this typically translates into a dollar investment of between $100,000 and $450,000 (depending on the quality of the rental instruments etc.). If a shop started renting higher end instruments on a regular basis, 20 to 30 instruments could start running between $300,000 to $500,000 (without anywhere near the monthly income return 800 of the low end rentals would produce). Plus the more instruments (of the higher end) that are out for rental, the less that are available to show potential purchasers.

September 7, 2013 at 04:09 AM · My experience with Ifshin Violins in El Cerrito, California is that they rented instruments for a monthly charge between 1/36 and 1/60 of the retail price. This amounted to about $25/mo for Jay-Haide violins and $50/mo for Jay-Haide cellos - but I have seen one of their best Jay-Haide cellos ($7,500) rented for $75/mo. However they did not have the most liberal policy for applying rent paid to an instrument purchase, at that time up to $300 could be applied (if I recall correctly).

Worth checking out!

Andy