Slightly OT: best wine bargain

Well, why DIDN'T you buy a case? Sorry, someone had to say it. :) I know the feeling.

That exclusion is in most instrument policies. At least yours was quite portable, sometimes it's hard to find safe spot in a restaurant for Betsy's cello.

At least now we know why more people aren't playing the Sousaphone!

Dan-O (tooting his own horn)

The big difference of course is even the most expensive brass instruments are comparatively cheap!

I did not find your thoughts at ALL OT. Thanks for sharing. Yes, if only we knew then, what we know now, and had the same balance in our checking accounts, right?

A friend of mine was a poor med-student in the late '50s, and his room mate convinced him to splurge on a case of Ch. Petrus, at US$8/btl. He did this for all of med-school, and well into the '70s. He's now got about 40 cases of Ch. Petrus. Now, that he's a department head, and much better off, he maintains that he cannot afford to drink any of this, as it is now his grandchildren's legacy. My wife was going to get a bottle of the '47 Petrus, for my 50th, but hesitated - big time. Now, the year next, I had a bottle of the Taylor Fladgate '48 for HER 50th, though I did buy it many years before and at a then fair price.

Now to echo Dale - why didn't you buy the whole case? You know that we'd have all chipped in to pay for some of it!!!

Again, thanks for sharing, Hunt

But pity the poor circus steam calliope player. Not only must the extremely large instrument be parked, but the elephants that sometimes pull it must be cared for. The restaurant must have a ground level parking garage with extremely wide and high doors, and they must have a elephant sitter and plenty of hay, fruit juice etc to feed the elephants. Even if such a restaurant could be found, the bill for taking care of the instrument and elephants likely would be much more than the calliope player could afford.

Let us not forget that the REASON that fine string instruments are now priced beyond the reach of all but the most affluent professionals is exactly the same reason that fine big name wines are similarly inflated:

People with more money than they know what to do with have become COLLECTORS of both types of commodities. The tales of Nouveau Riche Chinese who buy Lafite Rothschild only to place it on the table where the label can be prominently displayed and then proceed to mix it with Coca Cola over ice cubes I accept without question.

A great many examples of string instruments from the old masters are not being played, but sit untouched in vaults awaiting MONETARY APPRECIATION for their owners who look forward to selling them at even more inflated prices to other collectors. The same holds true of vintage wines.

Godzilla (who remembers buying a number of bottles of second growth Chateau Ducru-Beaucaillou for $3.89 each from Trader Joe's in Los Angeles)

That's just sick, even more so than wine collection is. It's not like there are going to be any more Amati, Guarneri or Stradivari violins made now, is there? And, unlike wines, these are devices with a function. FWIW, my impression from the few concert violinists I've known is that they can generally obtain a good concert violin on loan, though not without a good deal of effort expended. Granted, there are a lot more skilled violinists in the world than the hundred or so who frequent the concert stages, but I'd hope that some of these collectors would at least consider such a loan agreement, if for no other reason than it helps advertise the quality of their instrument.

Mark Lipton (erstwhile violin student)

I buy Martin guitars. I buy them because I love them and I play them. I rotate them weekly, I clean them, change the strings then play them for a week or two before putting one in it's case and getting out another one. I have never sold a Martin guitar and I expect to pass them on to my children who also love and play Martin guitars. I do the same with wine. I buy a lot of wine. I drink a lot of wine and I give a lot of wine to charity and as gifts to freinds. I have rarely sold a bottle of wine from my cellar and only then when someone needs a certain bottle for a special event. I expect to pass my cellar on to my children who also love to drink wine with me and my wife. Am I a collector?

No, demonstrably not. You're a _consumer_, Bill, as are we all, to greater or lesser extents. There's a world of difference. The creatures we are speaking of here view wine/violins as investments, not things to be enjoyed for their own sake.

Mark Lipton

The elephant feed bill is really a drag. On the subject of large instruments, have you ever noticed most harpists are beautiful women? With a guy there to lug the harp! Hope no one regards that as sexist, but has been my consistent observation.

Hide quoted text -

That's very true, and very sad. It's pretty much impossible for even a very sucessful musician to afford a top old Italian instrument.

As Mark notes, some collectors loan instruments. I believe my stepson's dad is currently playing a Strad that is loaned by a friend/ patron. And before that played a Strad from the Stradavari Society (arranges loans from collectors). I think Betsy played an early 18th century Italian cello when she was in Meliora Quartet, loaned by a foundation. But that's a fraction of the top instruments.

And, like wine, the investor-fueled thirst for the top instruments leaves everyone else scrambling for next tier. Which raises prices there. Betsy's primary instrument is 19th century, probably Czech, and not especially valuable (though one could buy an expensive car for its insured value). But she could never currently probably find another instrument in its range that she likes as much. If it were lost or damaged, we'd be up a creek sans paddle.

The question was a bit rhetorical and slightly tongue in cheek but I do understand the semantics of the issue. I'm puzzled by the so- called wine lovers who purchase wines from mailing lists, insider relationships, etc and flip them on the internet for sometimes huge gains claiming that they only do it to allow them to be able to drink a bottle for "free". That is a bit akin to saying "I don't deal drugs, I just sell enough to pay for my habit". I think that process has been a factor in driving the prices to extraordinary levels for ordinary wines. It's this thought process that keeps places like Screaming Eagle in business. Without a secondary market driven by a self created demand, it's just another $60 California Cab. instead of a $1500 trophy wine.

well said Bill!

enjoy your w>> >>

Just to flog an ex-horse into complete oblivion, here's my take as someone who's collected stamps and coins at various points in his life and who's a linguistic pedant. If I have $11 of loose change sitting in a jar at home, I still don't consider myself a coin collector. Why not? What is the distinguishing feature? I'd argue that most people would see intent as the critical dividing line: collectors take coins out of circulation permanently; people with loose change are simply in between uses of the coins. Ditto with the musical instruments and wine: if you accumulate such with no intent to use them, you're a collector. OTOH, if you amass a cellar full of wine that you plan on drinking over the next 30 years, you're not a collector but rather a consumer with a long-term strategy. To me, collecting is as much a mentality as an activity, but of course YMMV.

Mark Lipton

in article MpidnUWFu88FaoPbnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@insightbb.com, Mark Lipton at snipped-for-privacy@eudrup.ude wrote on 4/12/07 8:23 PM:

well.... I may be way over my head in the semantics department but I see a substantive difference here in that stamps and coins would not appear to have a point of termination of value. Wines, on the other hand, do. Someone has to consume them at some point or they will have collected bottles of undrinkable content. There is a finite termination point of the 'value' of the wine 'collection'. To my mind wine is one thing that can be both collected and consumed without terminal impact on the definition of either pursuit. In this case I'm thinking that the pure semantics are overridden by the nature of the item.

I guess there's a point, too, where one could argue that the pure collector is not so much concerned with what ultimately happens to the items in the collection so long as they can be enjoyed while in his/her possession. But perhaps there's also an issue of the meaning of 'enjoy' in this context. One can enjoy a painting by just looking at it, but I really don't think one could (or perhaps 'should') 'enjoy' a bottle of wine by just looking at it. I doubt that many people would find complete fulfillment in the possession of a wine collection if they never got to drink any of it.

well said!