Hi, i am trying to buy a violin for my daughter, and do not know what to buy her. Has anyone ever purchased a violin off ebay? There are many places ot buy viiolins very cheaply, that say the instrument is worth much more than you pay eg buy for $59, retail price of $699. If this is not true, which it seems hard to believe, how can they advertise it as such? Isnt it illegal to say lie like that? Or is it true that they are great value? I have also looked at a gliga violin, bu they are very expensive. She has been playing for about a year, and loves to play, what should i get for her.Thanks

Hi Alyssia

I started the violin last Autumn on a borrowed instrument my sister had purchased from E-bay. It was an Antoni - the variety of violin you can buy from Tesco for £60.

There wasn't anything intrinsically wrong with it - it had an adequate tone and an adequate bow. It improved tremendously when I put decent strings on it and when my teacher put the bridge right. It was sufficient for an absolute beginner like me to get going.

Then at Christmas, my husband bought me a Gliga Gems 1, which cost £300. It has a far, far better voice, is more comfortable to hold and has an infinitely better bow. My playing has come on tremendously since having it, and part of that may be due to the better response I get from this instrument than from the other. My teacher says it will serve me more than adequately for several years to come, until I'm ready to take the higher grade exams. A number of violinists at the Adult Learners' Concert yesterday looked at it, tried it out and liked it.

A decent instrument is a sensible investment if your daughter's going to carry on with the violin. And compared with, say, a beginner flute or a "cheap" piano, a couple of hundred bucks isn't actually a huge amount to pay.

The trouble with E-bay is that you don't know what you're going to get. You may well find a bargain like my sister did (the only thing wrong with it when it came was the e-string had snapped), or you may find a seriously-abused lump of firewood that will never play again - which is much more a waste of money than buying a reputable fiddle from a reputable dealer would be.

Cheers

Katyjay

It works like this, Alyssia.

There are hundreds of factories in china producing violins. Now, the wholesalers can get the best prices because they are in a position to place very large orders, tie a great deal of money up for a long time, and often (as is the case with one major UK wholesaler) they actually have employees who can speak the language fluently and can go out to china to source instruments direct. And of course they have high overheads and they have done the sourcing so it is not entirely unreasonable that they should make a very good profit. One wholesaler admitted once, to a retailer we know, that a violin case in their catalogue that has a list price of £60 actually comes out of China at $4. Chinese labour is very cheap and competition is intense. I can assure you that the retailer isn't getting most of that markup!!

Small independent retailers such as ourselves cannot get prices anywhere near as low as those that can be obtained by a wholesaler, but we can get a price that would enable us to buy direct from China at a lot less than we could by through a wholesaler and to sell for a lot less than the list price of a comparable item from a wholesaler whilst still making more profit than we would by using a wholesaler. It does require tying ones money up for months at a time and that is probably why not many retailers do it.

Now, to give a quick factual example, there is one particular violin that we are desperately trying to shift (so far we have sold none at all - everyone prefers the Gligas) which we estimated, based on our knowledge of the competition and mark-ups, would sell at about £1200 retail if purchased through a wholesaler. We originally had it listed at £400, working on about half as much profit again as we get if we buy a violin through a whoelsaler and sell at the list price. So we get 1.5 times the profit, the buyer gets a violin for 1/3 of the price, the Chinese company that makes them probably gets something like six times the price they would have got from a wholesaler, there is only one in the chain who loses out. But if we listed that violin as "list price £1200" that would mean very little because we didn't pay anywhere near as much as we would have to pay to buy a comparable violin from a wholesaler.

Liz

Liz

Liz

I think part of the difficulty with shifting that violin is that the Gligas you sell are great - and I know jolly well that a lot of people on these forums are enthusiasts of them, not just me.

It's a bit like a motor dealership I audited many years ago - they sold two marques, Lotus and Lancia. Now the Lancias were perfectly good vehicles, but they suffered from not being Lotuses, so people would see something more desirable - even if it wasn't what they actually intended to buy - and the sales were lousy as a result. Had the dealership been entirely Lancias they'd probably have done very well on them. I suspect you're having a similar problem.

Alyssia

have a look at Liz's website (in her profile). As well as detail on the violins she sells, she has an interesting section on the dangers of buying through E-bay which is well worth a read.

I was really impressed with KJ's Gems violin. I own a Gliga Gama viola which is a really beautiful instrument.

Looking at Liz's site you can buy an entire Gliga Genial outfit for £150, and that is at full size. If you have the finances to consider a Gliga then do, they truly are superb instruments at the higher levels and I suspect that the Genials (if they live up to Liz's description, and the better instruments certainly do)

Look also at the other ranges Liz sells, you will get very good service and I rather suspect much better value for money than you're likely to find elsewhere.

I am madly researching violins on the net and have really confused myself!! Some say to buy a Cremona, some say a Knilling, some say an Eastman Strings. Arghhh!!!! I found this board by accident today and after reading this thread tried to go to Liz's site and look....but I can't get there. Can you put a link here?

I am in the USA, do you ship here?

Ranchmom5

Ranchmom

It's here.

Cheers

Katyjay

There is a US site that does Gliga's I think. (link in the double bass thread?)

yes, but with the present dire state of the dollar you'll probably do better from

violinslover

(he owes me a few!!!!!)

Liz

Thanks Liz,

I found your site and checked out Violin Lovers. I can only spend $200 or less so that would mean buying the "Genial". Is that a good choice? Also, I saw that it comes standard with steel strings, but I had heard elsewhere that better strings (D'Addario or others) would be highly recommended. Your thoughts?

Yes, the genial is fine. Go for the 1 if you can - the sprayed on nitro varnish is much more prone to humidity cracks than the spirit varnish used on the 1. We put Dominant strings on ours - haven't found anything any better for a Genial.

Liz