in Dallas. He took a taxi from the Newark Airport

to Manhattan and before he could take his violin out, the car pulled away.

It probably the scariest and most devastating experience of my life.

The cab driver returned the instrument a few hours later, but the incident scarred

Philippe for good reason. This wasn't just any violin he left in the cab. This

was a Stradivarius violin worth over four million dollars that's on loan to

him. It's like losing part of yourself, you know. It's like somebody cut off your

hand and especially given the fact it's not your hand.

This hand already was

belonging to someone else.

Even if you're not a musician like me, you've probably

still heard of a Stradivarius violin.

Stradivarius. Stradivarius. Stradivarius.

There's some of the most famous string

instruments in the world. And some of the most renowned musicians have declared

their love for them.

This instrument has a soul and it has an imagination. It's not

a tool. It is a part -- it's a total extension of me.

Strads, as they're sometimes called,

are incredibly valuable and can be worth up to 16 million

dollars. But are they actually worth it?

I headed up to Lincoln Center to meet

Michelle Kim to find out.

I am the assistant concert master of the

New York Philharmonic.

The characteristic of a Strad in general is that it has a silvery tone. And it

creates this incredibly sweet tone, so if you were...

For me the Strad has a sweet quality to it, but also able to take some blows. So

if I were to play something really hard...

and versus you know something...

By playing on my daughter's instrument I would have had to...

press kind of hard to to make that sound come out, but you would lose the quality

that you're actually looking for.

The source of the Strad's brilliant sound

can be traced back to its maker artisan Antonio Stradivari was a luthier or

violin maker who lived in Cremona, Italy in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

He crafted these string instruments for most of his life and

produced an estimated 1,100 instruments in his lifetime.

But only about 650

survived today.

These instruments are rare and there's a long tradition of

nicknaming them.

The 310 year-old violin that Philippe plays

is called Ruby.

I have to admit, I'm a little nervous to be around that.

My god, please don't do that.

I googled the gemstone the ruby and the description, I think was

that it's a stone of passion and mystery.

And immediately I attributed these

qualities to this violin and to this day I really feel that it's true. For

generations, musicians have claimed that Strads have a superior sound to modern

violins, but can most people actually tell the difference?

Researchers in Paris

performed a double-blind study with professional violinists, to see if they

could tell the difference between old Italian violins like Strads

and new violins.

They had musicians wear very cool sunglasses while they played

multiple instruments from each era.

The study found that even elite musicians couldn't reliably tell which

violins were old and which were new.

And maybe more surprisingly, most of them

actually preferred the sound of the new violins over the Strads.

One measure of

This is Joseph Curtin, one of the researchers behind the study

and a violin maker himself.

But maybe the worth of a Strad isn't wrapped up in its sound alone.

Michelle's violin has been passed down through generations of violinists for

almost 300 years, from the Duke of Cambridge, to the German composer Louis Spohr,

to Ureli Corelli, the founder of the New York Philharmonic.

It is literally a link to the past.

It is a piece of history that you are holding.

I feel like this violin is the New York Philharmonic, because it has existed as

long as the New York Philharmonic has.

It's been amazing to be a part of this Strad's life.