Collecting antique musical instruments is a field that can be fun and sometimes rewarding. To begin with, find a library that owns a copy of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians or its sibling The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. These multivolume works are the most scholarly general books. Though they can be difficult to use at first, especially for non-Western instruments. The problem here is one of quality. Most of the non-Western musical instruments for sale are not antique and are not musical instruments. They are what currators describe as tourist ware. These instruments are small enough to fit into luggage, but too small to produce any meaningful sound. Most tourist ware instruments are also heavily painted. Remember that paint was too expensive during the colonial period. If you want wall art, tourist ware is just fine. If you wish to play these instruments or buy for investment, expected to be disappointed. Tourist ware never ever increases in value.

Western musical instruments are much easier to research. Many websites exist (see Galpin, AMIS, and CIMCIM). These websites have links to important museums. There, you can research and study. If you wish to use the instrument to play, you need to hear what it sounds like. Ask the seller if you can return it if does not play well for you. If the seller understands that an instrument might sound fine for one musician but not for another there should be minimal objections to returning it.

If you are buying for investment purposes, be very careful. 99.9999 percent of all violins supposedly made by a famous maker are fake. No one in his/her right mind will ever sell an authentic Stradivari violin online. It is just too risky for everyone. For the seller, you need to see not just the instrument but all documentation proving the instrument's history.

For unusual instruments of some value that the major auction houses don't regularly sell (like sarrousophones, ophiclides, OTS horns, etc.), eBay can be a rewarding outlet for buyer and seller. Fakes are out there, but fake horns are far fewer than with fake violins.

For collectors interested in Civil War-era musical instruments, understand that many instruments were made but not sold during the war. Some companies continued to offer these instruments for about 15 years afterwards. Some companies continued to offer low-grade flutes into the 1930s. These flutes look like they might have been used during the Civil War. A little research in The New Langwill Index is strongly advised. This expensive single volume book is available through the publisher Tony Bingham in England. Nancy Toff's book about flutes is an absolute must for identifying unusual key types. Dr. Al Rice's books about the clarinet are also highly recommended.

A point of interest is that eBay still persists in allowing all sorts of non-musical instruments to be posted on the antique musical instrument board. The worst offenders are the Chinese merchants who either don't care or don't understand that they should be posting their Chinese antiques on the correct board and stop wasting their money posting on the wrong board. Who would go to the antique musical instrument board to look for Chinese swords or bronze dragons? Filling a board with material that does not belong there only hurts eBay and honest sellers. The time wasted sorting through all the junk drives away many prospective buyers.

An important point is offered here about curious musical instruments. Never buy a ukelin! It is not a musical instrument. It never was, and it never will be. It was little more than junk sold by door-to-door salesmen to ignorant people in the boonies. Ukelins were made as late as the 1960s when the company got fed up with all the returns and stopped making them. They do make interesting wall are, especially if creatively decorated.

Harpsichords verses zithers. This is a big mess for the uninformed collector. Harpsicords are easly identified. They are generally about as big as a small piano (some are smaller and others are much larger). They always have at least one keyboard. They generally cost thousands of dollars when new and much more if they are an antique. Zithers almost never have keyboards. Those examples that do have keyboards are poorly made. Zithers are almost always about the size of a briefcase, and never much larger. Hundreds of thousands of zithers were made and are still being made but a few avid musicians still happily play them. Zithers never ever sell for more than a few hundred dollars. So, if someone posts a harpsichord and it is really a zither, politely inform them of the error. Perhaps one day, eBay will offer a link to musical instrument museum websites to help people identify their common instruments.

In closing, musical instruments can represent almost every aspect of human activity and interest. What other item can reflect a culture's art, music, religion, physics, sexual beliefs, technology, politics, or language?

Peter H. Adams