About us

Collectibleviolins.com was built in 2007 to sell Violins from the Mario Cesare collection. Since then the purpose has grown to educate visitors about violins, explain violins as an investment and to discuss some of the confusion around the topic of violin appraisals. More recently we have added a section for visitors who want to sell a violin. You can place a classified ad. There is also a community with gifts and accesssories for violinists.

Our Violins are located in White Rock, British Columbia. We are about 45 minutes south of Vancouver BC on the Canada USA border near Blaine Washington and a 2 hour drive north of Seattle.

The prices are all quoted in $ Canadian.

The major challenge in any sales arrangement is that there must be some mechanisms in the process to protect both the buyer and the seller. As you will see, this is addressed in our selling process. More than that, there needs to first be a feeling that the buyer is dealing with a seller of integrity. So here are a few facts to let you know you are dealing with real people who do good business.

• We have sold 14 violins already with no returns.
• We have over 30 transactions on eBay with 100% positive feedback under the name of mcesare.

My name is Steven Bulmer. You can contact me using the contact form . If you would like me to telephone you regarding one of our Violins please be sure to include your telephone number in your message.

How to arrange a purchase:

Buying products on-line or where you are introduced on line is challenging especially for high ticket price items such as violins. As one of our prospective clients stated “The process sounds a bit cumbersome”. The tendency is to try to shop locally. On the positive side of that method, you may find the violin that you love nearby. On the negative side of that method, you are restricting yourself to what is available locally and may miss that violin that is special. I know they are all special. However, from what I have seen and heard, the tastes of violinists vary greatly and that special violin you are looking for may be very hard to find locally. We have had people try out our violins and not hear from them for close to a year. They return after exhausting searches to buy one of the violins from this collection because they are unique and they are the best violins of their kind on the market. So the process has a history of being worth the effort. So let’s go through it step by step. I will address each step first for buyers who are within distance to come to see and play them and then for our 100% on-line customers.

• Step 1 is to pick a violin. From the pictures and description most folks seem to have a favorite or two picked. It is a matter of asking a few questions via the contact form or phone and we can sort out which one is the best for you. For those who are within a few hundred miles, Vancouver is often a destination for a road trip and trying out a violin has been part of a road trip made by several of our clients. We set up an appointment and I have 2 to 5 violins ready for them to try out. The choice is made and we move to the next step.
• Step 2 is payment. For this step we have had 100% success with on-line sales as we are set up to manage this transaction via Paypal. If you have a Paypal account that is terrific. If you do not we are set up to e-mail you a Paypal invoice that can be paid by any major credit card. I love it because Paypal gives both you the buyer and us the sellers transaction security or they absorb the liability. They also give you buyer protection on your purchase. Your credit card may also give you buyer protection. Check the Paypal website and you should be comfortable after you read theie security and buyer protection plans. For those who deal with us in person, we have worked the Paypal method successfully. That or we accept cash as we are within 2 km of ATMs that access any North American Bank.
• Step 3 is shipping. In Canada shipping is easy but insurance is not. For American customers, we can ship out of Blaine, Washington. I have had great success with UPS ground. Costs and insurance rules are constantly changing so this will be worked out on an ad hoc basis. For those who shop in person, you of course take the violin with you when you have paid for it. We just cannot let something as valuable as a violin out without full payment.
• It goes without saying that you would like more than a few hours to inspect and play your new violin before closing the purchase permanently. In our return policy we allow a 2 week tryout period unless it is waved via e-mail by the buyer. We need the hard copy. I can’t think of a client who did not express that the deal was complete before the 2 week deadline. However, read through our return policy below for clarification. We have to include some protections for us the seller in it as well.

Return Policy:

Should we not be able to close a deal after the 2 week tryout period, we would give a full refund minus all expenses. These would be shipping and shipping insurance costs ($100 - $150 last time I checked) and Paypal transaction costs (3%). I have to include this as people would have me sending violins everywhere just to try them out if I didn't.