Antonio Stradivari
Stradivarius instruments

The Hills Violin Shop estimates that Stradivari produced 1,116 instruments, of which 960 were violins. It is also estimated that around 650 of these instruments survive, including 450 to 512 violins.

Stradivari's instruments are regarded as amongst the finest bowed stringed instruments ever created, are highly prized, and are still played by professionals today. His violins are desired more than those of any other luthier except his contemporary, Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, who commands a similar respect among violinists. However, neither blind listening tests nor acoustic analysis have ever demonstrated that Stradivarius instruments are better than other high-quality instruments or even reliably distinguishable from them.

While the usual label for a Stradivarius instrument, whether genuine or false, uses the traditional Latin inscription, after the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890, copies were also inscribed with the country of origin. Since thousands of instruments are based on Stradivari's models and bear the same name as his models, many unwary people are deceived into purchasing forged Stradivarius instruments, which can be avoided by authenticating the instrument.

Some violinists and cellists use Stradivari instruments in their work. Yo-Yo Ma uses the Davidov Stradivarius, Julian Lloyd Webber employs the Barjansky Stradivarius, and, until his death in 2007, Mstislav Rostropovich played on the Duport Stradivarius. The Soil of 1714 is owned by virtuoso Itzhak Perlman. The Countess Polignac is currently played by Gil Shaham. The Vienna Philharmonic uses several Stradivari instruments that were purchased by Austria's central bank Oesterreichische Nationalbank and other sponsors: Chaconne, 1725; ex-Hämmerle, 1709; ex-Smith-Quersin, 1714; ex- Arnold Rosé, ex- Viotti, 1718; and ex-Halphen, 1727. Viktoria Mullova owns and plays the Jules Falk. Joshua Bell owns and plays the Gibson ex-Huberman.

The London sales of The Mendelssohn at £902,000 ($1,776,940) in 1990 and The Kreutzer for £947,500 in 1998 constitute two top-selling Stradivari. A record price paid at a public auction for a Stradivari was $2,032,000 for the Lady Tennant at Christie's in New York, April 2005. On 16 May 2006, Christie's auctioned Stradivari's 1707 Hammer for a new record of US$3,544,000. On 2 April 2007, Christie's sold a Stradivari violin, the 1729 Solomon, Ex-Lambert, for more than $2.7 million to an anonymous bidder in the auction house's fine musical instruments sale. Its price, US$2,728,000 including Christie's commission, far outdid its estimated value: $1 million to $1.5 million. On 14 October 2010, a 1697 Stradivari violin known as " The Molitor " was sold online by Tarisio Auctions for a world-record price of $3,600,000 to violinist Anne Akiko Meyers: at the time its price was the highest for any musical instrument sold at auction. On 21 June 2011, the Lady Blunt Stradivarius, a 1721 violin, was auctioned by Tarisio to an anonymous bidder for almost £10 million, with all proceeds going to help the victims of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. This was over four times the previous auction record for a Stradivari violin. The c. 1705 Baron von der Leyen Strad was auctioned by Tarisio on 26 April 2012, for $2.6 million.

Publicly displayed collections of Stradivari instruments are those of:

The collection of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra had the largest number of Stradivari in its string section, purchased in 2003 from the collection of Herbert R. Axelrod, until it decided to sell them in 2007. A collection assembled by Rodman Wanamaker in the 1920s contained as many as 65 stringed instruments by such masters as Stradivari, Gofriller, Baptiste and Giuseppe Guarneri. Included was The Swan, the last violin made by Stradivari, and soloist instrument of the great Cuban 19th-century virtuoso Joseph White. The collection, known as The Cappella, was used in concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski before being dispersed after Wanamaker's death. The Vienna Philharmonic uses four violins and one cello. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has three Stradivari violins dated 1693, 1694 and 1717. The National Music Museum, in Vermillion, South Dakota, has in its collection one of two known Stradivari guitars, one of eleven known violas da gamba, later modified into a cello form, one of two known choral mandolins, and one of six Stradivari violins that still retain their original neck. In the interests of conservation, the Messiah Stradivarius violin—on display in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England—has not been played at all in recent years.
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