Selling violins?

[H R Fisher]

  After 20 years of trial and error in violin making i think i am ready to start selling my instruments in a serious way, as of now i have been donating majority of them to charities or selling them slightly above material costs. How and where is a good place to advertise and sell them? I would appreciate your helpful information.

                                                Thanks  Henry

 

[lvlagneto]

3 hours ago, H R Fisher said:

  After 20 years of trial and error in violin making i think i am ready to start selling my instruments in a serious way, as of now i have been donating majority of them to charities or selling them slightly above material costs. How and where is a good place to advertise and sell them? I would appreciate your helpful information.

                                                Thanks  Henry

 

I repair only. 

It's very easy to start a Facebook page, and to advertise/sell using Facebook Marketplace combined with Instagram and other sites (for visual/video leading/marketing).  You can link directly to your business site/page, or deal with people directly on FB/social.  Lots of good photos will help.  I've found that most people know nothing, and that a lot of sales are simply due to being prolific/visible, and walking people through the basics.  

If you want to place work locally in a physical location, it will be hard.  I've tried cold calling shops in my area, and they generally respond by saying that they have their "own line" of rentals and items for sale.  And let's be clear, I wasn't ringing up Sam Ash (now defunct in NY) asking for wall space; these are small local stores.  I suspect they are all trying to survive, walking on a financial razors edge.

 

[Wood Butcher]

A few things spring to mind, but firstly, are you entirely self-taught?

I do not mean it to sound unpleasant, but there really is a gulf between pro level, and amateur making. That is not to say they cannot compete, at least tonally, but discrepancies in dimensions, neck shapes, fingerboard thickness, set-up, instrument weight, varnish type/colour can be make or break.
Think about why someone might choose yours, over another violin. What do they offer in comparison, and what do you offer to a potential client, in terms of backup, future resale value, guarantees etc?
Who are your potential clients going to be, school children, folk fiddlers, music students, local pros?

Secondly, where do you see your instruments being placed, compared to other instruments?
It would be a good idea, if you yourself, are not an accomplished player, to find someone who is, and go with them to a good violin shop.
If the shop is happy to allow it, have the player pit yours against some of their popular inventory, particularly against things like Jay Haide, German, and eastern European workshop instruments.
To get anywhere at all, they will need to be as good, or better than these. If not, you are faced with the prospect of selling them for less than these would cost, which would not seem sustainable, should you want to make a profit.

Should you find a shop that would be willing to take on your instruments, their commission rates may be quite hefty, and become a significant proportion of the final pricing.
I would not consider auctions a viable place to sell new instruments, as an unknown maker.

I have done a search, but was unable to find any pictures of your work.

 

[Mark Caudle]

1 hour ago, Wood Butcher said:

I have done a search, but was unable to find any pictures of your work.

I found a  website with some pictures quite easily??

[lvlagneto]

15 minutes ago, Mark Caudle said:

I found a  website with some pictures quite easily??

Me as well, if this is the same individual.  Assuming that this is the case, it seems like you arealdy have enough visual content to start pushing it out to Instagram etc.  Bombard Instagram, Facebook, social media with too many posts of your work on a regular basis.  Short form videos of people playing your instruments would also help.  It's all about visibility at this point, and pricing your work above material costs would help!  

The more that you share process and product in use, the more interest there will be.

[Dr. Mark]

7 hours ago, Mark Caudle said:

I found a  website with some pictures quite easily??

Yep https://www.hrfisherviolins.com/ I presume

[Brad Dorsey]

11 hours ago, H R Fisher said:

  After 20 years of trial and error in violin making i think i am ready to start selling my instruments in a serious way, as of now i have been donating majority of them to charities or selling them slightly above material costs...

Whether your violins can be useful to anyone can depend on the quality of your workmanship.

Last week, I went to examine a hoard of about 60 violins, violas and cellos that were all made by a hobbyist maker, who died recently, and his father.  The executor of the estate is trying to figure out what to do with all the instruments -- perhaps sell them or donate them.  Because the makers followed the ideas of Carleen Hutchins, many of the instruments have strange dimensions.  There's even a left-hand viola.  Who ever heard of a left-hand viola?

The instruments are all somewhat crudely made.  They have nails driven through the back buttons into the necks.  I assume this was done because the makers were incapable of fitting their necks well enough to be held in just by glue.  The set-ups were not good:  nuts too high, bridges and posts not well fitted, pegs sticking, necks poorly shaped, etc.

I brought one cello back to my workshop to reglue some seams so that it could be donated to a music school.  (The back is nailed to the blocks as well as to the neck.)  After gluing the seams and doing some other set-up work, I tightened the strings and heard a loud crack.  I looked inside with a mirror and discovered that the crack was the sound of the bass bar coming partly separated from the top.  In addition to being incapable of gluing in a neck, the maker was also incapable of properly gluing a bass bar to a top.

Now I have to tell the executor that this cello, made by his brother, is so poorly built that it is not worth even being given free to a music school.  And probably all the other instruments, too.

[lvlagneto]

3 hours ago, Brad Dorsey said:

Now I have to tell the executor that this cello, made by his brother, is so poorly built that it is not worth even being given free to a music school.  And probably all the other instruments, too.

In the case of the OP though, the instruments don't seem like oddities.  

[Don Noon]

Packing and shipping instruments is a pain and expensive.  Selling to a shop (either directly or on commission) is iffy, depending on the shop.  One shop didn't even want to bother, since they could make more profit on Chinese violins (which can be hard to beat on price/performance).  

If you can, make it a point to be where players can be found, especially students and teachers.  Maybe a local amateur orchestra.  Some might want to try your instruments, and if they're good, you can develop a local word-of-mouth network.  Dealing directly with the client in person is the most satisfying for me, and the most effective.

[jacobsaunders]

Selling violins always involves starting by finding someone who wants one

[Don Noon]

Selling violins that you make involves finding someone who not only wants a violin, but likes yours better than all of the other ones out there.  Not easy.

[Jeffrey Holmes]

Marketing violins to local teachers/players teachers, visiting shops that are not opposed to consignment and do a good portion of their business in the price range you want to start with, networking at conventions and speaking with others who have had some success in marketing their own fiddles, listen to advice from those who do sell their own or other's fiddles.  Good luck!

[Michael Darnton]

11 hours ago, lvlagneto said:

In the case of the OP though, the instruments don't seem like oddities.  

But you're not a shop owner, right? Nor a trained maker?

[lvlagneto]

25 minutes ago, Michael Darnton said:

But you're not a shop owner, right? Nor a trained maker?

I sell repaired instruments, mentioned earlier.  Where are we going?

This seems more like a marketing/networking/advice issue like Jeffery is suggesting.

[H R Fisher]

1 hour ago, Michael Darnton said:

But you're not a shop owner, right? Nor a trained maker?

That is correct. Thus far i have been happy to sell them just for my material costs and a few bucks for my time, perhaps thats all should be expecting. And btw im not trying to make a living building fiddles however I think if I would know how and where to market them I could do a bit better financially.

   So thanks for your responses   Henry

[H R Fisher]

3 hours ago, Michael Darnton said:

But you're not a shop owner, right? Nor a trained maker?

This quote on second thot was not directed to me, but it is true about me as well. I should have read it in it's context.

[lvlagneto]

17 hours ago, H R Fisher said:

This quote on second thot was not directed to me, but it is true about me as well. I should have read it in it's context.

It's hard to keep up with who's on first within some of these threads. 

I'm not a maker or shop owner, but people who repair and resell (like me) have the same woes as makers, and similar avenues for selling. 

I see that you have some SVA recognition, so it's not like you're wildly outside of traditional making, which is what I meant when saying that your work was far from being in the realm of oddities. 

[Don Noon]

3 hours ago, lvlagneto said:

I see that you have some VSA recognition, so it's not like you're wildly outside of traditional making, which is what I meant when saying that your work was far from being in the realm of oddities.  

Not to knock one's accomplishments, but SVA is not VSA.  There are a lot of well-known pros that enter VSA, and it's a huge deal to win something there.

[Brad Dorsey]

2 hours ago, Don Noon said:

...SVA is not VSA...

What is it?

[lvlagneto]

12 hours ago, Don Noon said:

Not to knock one's accomplishments, but SVA is not VSA.  There are a lot of well-known pros that enter VSA, and it's a huge deal to win something there.

Thanks for the correction on SVA vs VSA.  I actually went back and double checked my response to make sure that I hadn't transposed things (before posting), but I still screwed it up.  I'm used to talking about SVA far more than VSA since I deal more with the arts, and was certain that I was getting it right.

Jeffery gave the best advice.

[Riccardo964]

On 10/20/2024 at 2:48 AM, Dr. Mark said:

Yep https://www.hrfisherviolins.com/ I presume

Interesting prize on this page:

[HoGo]

From my experience. Get them to hands of good players. I never offered my instruments for sale but simply let good players play them and either they dind't want to return them to me or they spread the word among other players who tried them and liked them. I was active player myself so knew what players needed and also knew the folks. From there the instruments sell themselves, assuming you are good enough for your pricing.

[MikeC]

Not exactly a fringe group.   I was thinking of joining since I'm in Georgia.  

https://southernviolinassociation.com/

 

[Marty Kasprzyk]

20 hours ago, lvlagneto said:

Thanks for the correction on SVA vs VSA.  I actually went back and double checked my response to make sure that I hadn't transposed things (before posting), but I still screwed it up.  I'm used to talking about SVA far more than VSA since I deal more with the arts, and was certain that I was getting it right.

Jeffery gave the best advice.

There are only six combinations: VSA,VAS,AVS,ASV,SAV,and SVA. I actually like SAV for the "Submerged Aquatic Vegetaition" group if you're into viola making although AVS "American Viola Society" is good too.