Pursuits
The World's Most Expensive Instrument Just Got Slightly Cheaper
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Q: What do you call the world’s most valuable musical instrument if nobody wants it? A: A viola
In a failure-to-sell that promises to revive the catty, music-nerd viola joke genre, auctioneers Sotheby’s and Ingles & Hayday said that at the close of sealed bidding for the 1719 “Macdonald” viola, nobody had offered the minimum $45 million price. It would have been a world record for an instrument.