My New Hand Carved Italian Cello

My parents bought me a student cello in High School and I have played it all these years. It is a beautiful cello and I have loved it. In November, I was practicing my cello and told my husband that I wished I had a cello that the sound was richer for this concert. He asked me if I wanted to go and look at cellos. I told him no because I didn't feel like we could afford one with Christmas coming and I already had one and couldn't justify owning two when I don't play that often. He said, let's just go look for fun, for a date. I thought about it and decided that, it would be a fun date. So we headed on our date to the store I wanted to go to. In the parking lot, I told him that since we were doing this for fun, that I wanted to play all the cellos and not know the price. I just wanted to find the most beautiful sounding cello. That would be the fun. He agreed and in we went.

We had the best person help us. His name was Gavin. He is the string specialist at Summerhays. An excellent resource person in buying a string instrument. He spent 3 hours with us between looking at cellos and bows. I would play a cello and then another. I would choose my favorite between them and then try another and choose my favorite between those two. One cello kept standing out over and over and over again. After I played everything they had, it was clear to me which cello I would buy if we were buying one, it had a truly amazing sound.

Gavin left to go downstairs to get some more bows and while he was gone, we joked around that we should ask the price on this cello just for fun. We have a game we have played for years, where we both guess a price and see who is closest. We both guessed a price, I guessed $30,000. Evan made his guess. When Gavin came back in, we told him that we wanted to know the price on this one. He told us that it was twenty four five. Evan and I looked at each other and thought that the price was fair for the quality sound it had but of course, waaay out of our price range. Gavin corrected us and said that no, it was a $6,000 cello marked down to $2, 450. I thought how could this be, but it didn't matter. We looked at each other and knew it was meant to be. Evan bought it on the spot for me. We also bought a bow, my favorite kind.

I have played that cello a lot since we bought it and it has exceeded my expectations every single time I play it. I feel blessed to own such a beautiful sounding and looking cello. Thank you Evan for that most thoughtful gift and for wanting me to have the best for my all cello concert dream.