Why does one violin cost three times another?

The wood is the same. A White Label violin and a Black Label violin are both spruce, maple and ebony, and there is no cheaper species in the less expensive one. What you pay more for is the maker’s time, how carefully the wood was selected within that species, the varnish, the glue, the strings it arrives with, and the experience of the person who carved it. A White Label violin is built in a day or two by a workshop we have bought from for years. A Black Label takes about a week, and is built to a written specification from Kenneth Kuo.

White Label is where most families start, and it is a sound place to start. It clears the standard we set before we will stock anything, it is set up on the same bench as every other instrument we rent, and it will carry a student through the first years of school orchestra. It also suits how string rentals actually work. A child on a half size violin is on a three-quarter within a year or two and full size after that, and many families would rather not put more money into an instrument that goes back before long.

Black Label is for the student who is staying with it. Ken selects the wood, specifies how thin the plates are carved, chooses the varnish and the finish, and checks each instrument against that specification before it enters the fleet. A maker who has been building for thirty years knows where to take a little more off to open up the sound. The result has more tone and a fuller sound to draw on, which a student begins to hear once they are practicing regularly. It is worth the money for a student who has settled on the instrument, has reached full size, or is going to be playing it for several years.

You do not have to decide now. Families change their minds partway through a year, and we built for that. There is a change of instrument form, you pay the difference in the monthly rate for the months remaining, and the insurance is recalculated. There is no penalty and no fee. Starting on White Label and moving up in the second or third year is a normal path, and it is the one we would suggest to anyone who is unsure.

The setup does not change. Every violin we rent, at every label, is set up by a trained luthier on our bench in Norwalk before it goes out. That work affects how an instrument plays more than the price does, and we do not do less of it on the less expensive one.