Christie's will auction the Stradivarius violin known as The Hammer on May 16 in New York, the auction house announced.According to Christie's, the 1707 violin, which dates from violinmaker Antonio Stradivari's golden period, is in a wonderful state of preservation.
Christie's estimates the price of the violin at $1.5 to $2.5 million. Another Stradivarius, The Lady Tennant, sold at Christie's in April 2005 for $2.032 million, a record price for a musical instrument. The Hammer is named for the Swedish collector Christian Hammer, who owned it in the 19th century. It has spent much of the last century in the United States, where its owners have included violinist and collector Bernard Sinsheimer, industrialist Raymond
