A guy in my year at school is having a clear out and they were desperate to get rid of his mum's old violin. He was begging people to take it and even put a poster up 'Anyone want a free violin ask Jordan' haha.
Ok so, it's no use to me - i already have 2 violins, some of you may already know my belooveedddd Fidelio But being obsessed with violins i gladly accepted his offer lol.

It's in pretty good shape it looks brand new! (ok so in violin terms 'brand new' isnt a good thing but you know what i mean xD). Even if it is bright orange and the bridge is all wrong - huge gap between the d and a strings and tiny gap between the a and e strings!
But it's not even the quality of a stentor and i'll never ever play it. And i wont sell it as 1) it's worth very very little and 2) i could never accept something for free and go sell it.
I'm so tempted to turn it into an experimental violin, but i'm not sure i could bring myself to do anything damaging to any instrument! aaah

I'm really temped to paint it too
http://www.galerie-dorsay.com/images/nzupan_big.jpg
http://www.davegetz.com/Media/Art/FullSize...ted_violin1.jpg

Cool eh but unfortunately i'm not much of an artist
Maybe i could do something like paint it white (if i could manage to cover the BRIGHT orange varnish) then paint some musical notes on, and use it as an ornament in my room...
hmmm
i'm thinking crazy thoughts XD

I think, as it's obviously not a very valuable instrument, you should do whatever you like with it! Nobody is going to miss it!

Some suggestions:

I have a beautiful old half size wooden violin case which will never be of any practical use to anybody, so at some point I plan to paint it and put it on the wall. I think you should definitely paint this one and use it as a decoration - would be very pretty! Or you could ask a more artistic friend to do it if you're worried about how your own paint skills will turn out...

If you want a budget viola you could string it as one... won't sound very good though! You could also wire it up as an electric instrument... or experiment with sympathetic strings or whatever...

You could buy a clock mechanism, drill a hole through the back and use it as a clock...

You could take it apart and see how it works... that's always interesting, we had a lecture where somebody did that partially once!

Or you could keep it as a pet. I dunno!

Wow you're full of good ideas!

I was quite set on the paint it white with musical notes on and sit it up on the side in my room, would look quite nice.
But my dad's like nooo don't be stupid, sell it! You could get £20 for it!
Hmmf


You say 'wire it up as an electric instrument' - how on earth would i go about that? I'd love an electric violin xD

I would fit it up as an electric instrument - buy a clip-on pick up from a music shop (you will also need an amplifier if you don't already have one). And then I might paint it some exotic colour....

Aah great idea. I'm gonna do that!