Hi, everyone...
I am a violinist by profession as well as a die-hard Titanic buff, so please bear with me as I post my two-cents worth about the "Strad."
As Dave Gittins correctly stated, all Stradivarius violins are accounted for, with only a few sad exceptions. The only time I have ever had the opportunity to even touch such an instrument was while attending a master class. There are some Strads in the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of History, but they are kept behind bullet proof glass. This should indicate to even the most casual observer that these violins are extremely rare and valuable, and hardly the stuff of garage sales.
In the late 19th century, violin makers began to label their violins as "Strads." This was only to indicate that the instrument in question was a COPY of a particular Strad. In the 20th century, this practice was curtailed when the violin makers were forced to print the words "copy of" onto their labels. During my 30 years of performing and teaching violin, I have had many instruments proudly presented to me by new students and their parents, all of them thrilled to say they had discovered a "real" Strad in the attic or the basement or a garage sale. It is very difficult and somewhat painful to tell these poor souls that they have been deceived. Most of these instruments are of very poor construction, quality and tone. I usually suggest they take the instruments to a violin maker and have it appraised - this puts the onus of breaking the disappointing news on someone else's shoulders.
As for the attempts of Mr. Hume's father to deal with the debt collectors: The musicians of Titanic were not employees of White Star Lines. Instead, White Star booked their musicians through an agency service, a practice still used by most cruise lines today. White Star only paid the musicians through April 14, 1912. (Had they known this would happen, would they have stopped playing at midnight? I think not - they deeply felt their callings as musicians and would have continued to play - but I digress.) White Star then deducted the cost of the men's lost uniforms and music books, and charged the families for the losses. The charges exceeded the wages earned, and the families wound up OWING White Star Line for the privelege of losing their loved ones aboard Titanic.
Linda
