Violin Fraud: Deception, Forgery, Theft, and the Law

Instruments of the violin family are well known to be exceptionally valuable if they are the work of an Italian master such as Stradivari or Guarneri. Unfortunately, in common with many other antique articles of value, the forger, the defrauder, and the thief operate in the world of the violin in a very conspicuous way. With varying degrees of skill, labels are altered, certificates of origin are spuriously created, new instruments are even disguised to look old and reproduce the features of an old master. Buyers, dealers, and even auction houses can easily make distressing and very expensive mistakes. This book detects the background to this fraudulent activity and explains how the law applies to it. Much of what is said applies to the antiques world generally, but there are specific and pressing problems relating to string instruments that have not been analyzed in detail before and with which this book is particularly concerned.