CHUMLEE: Not much.

What can I do for you?

Got this violin here.

It's been in my family for a very long time, Stradivarius.

CHUMLEE: Stradivarius?

EDGAR: Yeah.

CHUMLEE: Every once in a while one comes up.

It's very, very rare.

I mean, we're talking big money.

Even in this condition we're talking,

you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Yeah, I've seen millions.

[laughs]

I have a Stradivarius violin.

This violin has been in my family for a very long time.

It belonged to my grandfather.

I know there's a lot of copies or whatnot,

but there's a lot of information that

point to it being authentic.

I think a reasonable price would be $700,000.

CHUMLEE: What makes you think this is a Stradivarius?

EDGAR: One of the things I noticed,

there's a label inside, 1731.

Yeah, it says right in there Antonio Stradivarius,

and this is Cremona.

That's the town he was from in Italy.

From my understanding is the copies had to have a label

on there that said copy.

It became a law, actually.

CHUMLEE: Antonio Stradivarius was known for making

the best violin of the time.

And I'm not a violin expert, but I think he was known for making

the best violin of all time.

EDGAR: My understanding is they have a particular sound.

My grandfather purchased it because it sounded

better than the violin he had.

CHUMLEE: This is pretty cool, man.

It's in pretty rough condition.

It's got some cracks down here.

It even looks like maybe at some point

dad or grandpa tried to glue it back together,

or maybe you did.

I don't know.

[laughs] Not me.

But a lot of times they're in such bad condition

because these were, you know, tools of the trade.

People made their living off this,

and they would get beat up and smashed around a lot.

EDGAR: Yeah.

So how much are you looking to get for it?

Well, based on the condition that it's in

and what they go for, $700,000 I think is fair.

OK.

I mean, just looking at it, to me it looks far from $700,000,

but I have no idea.

I have some concerns.

One is the condition.

You know, the condition is everything.

Two, I know that once something's worth money,

people fake it.

There's a lot of questions I have here.

EDGAR: Yeah.

I'd like to call in a friend of mine and have him come down

and take a look at this.

Yeah, that sounds good.

All right, give me a minute.

Hang out.

Look around.

I'll call him up, get him down here, and we'll go from there.

OK, sounds good.

I'm happy to have an expert look at the violin

today and move along with this whole process

and find out what it really is.

AQUILES: Check it out.

Yeah, I don't know too much about Antonio Stradivarius.

What was so special about his designs behind these?

Ooh, man, so when you want to talk about the great violins

in history, Stradivarius, that name,

is the one that leads the way.

You're talking the wood selection,

varnish, fantastically made.

They're beautiful, but they're tools.

They have to perform a specific task.

And for most violinists, that's a soloist.

So you're talking about a person who's

standing in front of anywhere between a 50-

and 80-piece orchestra, and they have to be heard above that.

So you need an instrument of exceptional quality

and power and skill, and Stradivarius

violins unsurpassed.

What kind of price range is out there for these violins?

AQUILES: Sure.

So if this is a real Stradivarius violin--

there's one of his violas.

They want $40 million for it.

And it's not sold yet, but give it time.

Someone will buy it.

Those things, they get older and they get more valuable.

Well, let's take a look at this

and see if that's what we got here.

I'm excited.

So the first couple of things that I look at

are to see if all the parts line up

correctly, which this one does.

But it has significant damage.

His wood selection was such that when

he put the varnish on his instruments

and you would move it like this and it would sort of

look like it's rippling.

Really just majestic, beautiful.

But on this violin, I'm seeing a little too much

dark and even in this patch that's revealing

it's a sort of a muted brown.

And the inner linings of this, that line inside there

is just a little too haphazard to be anything

that he would have made.

He doesn't make those mistakes.

He takes so much time.

1731 puts it right towards the middle end of his middle period

when he was making some of his absolute best

stuff, his best instruments.

So are you telling me you don't think this is authentic?

Unfortunately, no.

No.

This instrument was made as an homage.

So what you have is from about the 1830s to about the 1960s,

really, they would mass produce these in the millions.

Do you think it has any value to it?

In its current shape, not a lot.

Well, thanks for coming down.

AQUILES: Yeah.

I wish we would have hit gold with this one, but--

That's always the hope, man.

That's always the hope.

Can't strum all the strings.

So he doesn't think it's a Strad.

I'm going out to have to, you know, go with him.

I'm going to have to pass on it.

Well, thank you for your time.

Yeah, thank you.

OK.

For now we'll just, you know, keep it safe.

Probably make a little case for it

and hang it up on the wall as a little homage

to our grandfather.