However, two Cremona violins are first mentioned in the will of his uncle in 1719[1] and all formed part of a longstanding collection that was kept in the family until 1880.
In that year, The violin was sold by Colonel Thomas Shaw-Hellier, commandant of the Royal Military School of Music, to George Crompton of Manchester, who, in 1885, sold it to the Hill firm on behalf of Dr. Charles Oldham of Brighton, a medical man with violin-playing talent.
She kept it until 1979, when it was sold to Thomas M. Roberts of Memphis, through another dealer, Alfredo Halegua of the Violin Gallery in Washington, D.C.[3] In 1998 Roberts sold the violin through Halegua to Dr. Herbert R. Axelrod, the ichthyologist and publishing entrepreneur later jailed for tax fraud.
A. Philips Hill has called this violin "one of the finest Stradivaris in existence"[citation needed].
"During his career, Stradivari is believed to have built about 1,100 instruments, with only about a dozen of them embellished with intricate patterns of inlaid wood and other delicate accoutrements.