Lady Blunt Increases 100 fold

A fifteen million dollar violin.

The original Lady Blunt.

As discussed before on the Edge, the famous Lady Blunt Stradivarius violin was donated by the Nippon Music Foundation in order to raise money to fund relief efforts in Northern Japan.  The auction house Tarisio conducted the acution today.  The Lady Blunt was the last item on the list at No. 126: "A FINE AND IMPORTANT ITALIAN VIOLIN BY ANTONIO STRADIVARI, CREMONA, 1721."  The violin sold for $15,894,000 (£8,750,000).  By way of comparison, the next highest priced item was a  French violin by Nicolas Lupot, 1799, which sold for £150,000.

The last time the Blunt went to auction, in 1971, she sold for a mere £84,000.