The Old Violin

Antique shops are wonderful places. They are filled with a sort of magic of the distant past, and contain the lives of many people and histories of cultures. Most things in an antique shop are outdated, broken, or generally unusable. Not that you'd really want to use most of the things you can find.
There is, however, one thing that kills me to find in an antique shop. I hate finding violins.

As a violin player myself, I tend to have a personal connection with the instrument. Each one has its own personality and story. The older they are, the better. I believe it's because they have seen much more and are able to give the music played on them a rich tone filled with sorrow, happiness, and years of history that shaped them carefully into the beautiful and delicate instruments they are today. Every time I see an old violin my breath is caught in the wonder at the years and years that the violin must have survived.

Some of these better, more well made violins are sold for millions and played by masters.
Some of them, sadly, end up broken and dusty in the back corner of a shop.

That's what makes me die a little every time I see a violin in such condition. It could have been anything in the past. It may have been some child's first instrument, leading them to become a great artist. It could have been an instrument used to bring some comfort to the sick or elderly with sweet songs. It could have been nothing at all, hardly touched, but full of the potential to become anything.
But over the years, it just sits in an attic, its strings becoming brittle with neglect, the carefully polished and formed wood warping with the damp and cold, the body slowly graying with dust.
A pleasing sight to a Romantic. A cringe-worthy scene to me.

Violins are like wine. But we don't treat them the same.