Hail the New Messiah

There's serious money to be made in antique violins with rare musical instruments topping the Coutts Passion Index for last year.

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The Vieuxtemps Guarneri violin sold for $16m
(Image credit: Copyright (c) 2008 Shutterstock. No use without permission.)

Roll over Beethoven. When it comes to old violins versus new, researchers earlier this year found that audiences in New York and Paris preferred the newer models over three revered Stradivarius violins. Maybe that's just as well. Rare musical instruments topped private bank Coutts' Passion Index of collectable assets, released last week, with a 16.4% gain in 2016, compared to a modest 1.2% rise for the index as a whole (the annual average rise stands at 5.3%). So, you might say antique violins are best left out of a fiddler's reach.

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Chris Carter
Wealth Editor, MoneyWeek

Chris Carter spent three glorious years reading English literature on the beautiful Welsh coast at Aberystwyth University. Graduating in 2005, he left for the University of York to specialise in Renaissance literature for his MA, before returning to his native Twickenham, in southwest London. He joined a Richmond-based recruitment company, where he worked with several clients, including the Queen’s bank, Coutts, as well as the super luxury, Dorchester-owned Coworth Park country house hotel, near Ascot in Berkshire.

Then, in 2011, Chris joined MoneyWeek. Initially working as part of the website production team, Chris soon rose to the lofty heights of wealth editor, overseeing MoneyWeek’s Spending It lifestyle section. Chris travels the globe in pursuit of his work, soaking up the local culture and sampling the very finest in cuisine, hotels and resorts for the magazine’s discerning readership. He also enjoys writing his fortnightly page on collectables, delving into the fascinating world of auctions and art, classic cars, coins, watches, wine and whisky investing.

You can follow Chris on Instagram.