My 6th grade daughter graduated from 3/4 cello to full size, meaning it was time to return the…read morerental and purchase. We live in NJ and everything we found in our less than $1600 price range had an amber tone with high gloss finish; which she viewed as "cheap". They also looked like all of the other 12 cellos in her school orchestra. She wanted something fully carved, more "special" in appearance. We expanded our search to online, against her teacher's advice; and found an attractive dark tone, fully carved Romanian cello up in Boston, at Stoughton Music for $1300. The photo showed a deep grain with oil finish, all matte and no gloss. My daughter lit up when she saw the photo. I called and spoke to Keith to confirm that it was fully carved, and to confirm that the appearance was not a photographic fluke. Expressing interest he offered to have the owner of the store call with more info. True to Keith's word, owner Bob called the next day, to again confirm the appearance, and to say it played very well for a unit in this price range. He described the steps he goes thru to select stock for his store from his concert string supplier, and then to have them setup with upgraded strings and bridge by a luthier. There was no pressure, but he offered that when we were ready we could put down a deposit and he would hold it until we could arrange to come up and try it out. He said if my daughter didn't like the sound, he would refund our deposit in full and there would be no hard feelings. I told him we had one last NJ store to visit, which we did a week later.
Then we called up Stoughton Music and spoke to John. I explained to John that we were ready to purchase, but couldn't get up to Boston to pick it up until the kids were out of school for the summer, a month away. John said no problem, he took a deposit by cc over the phone and said he would tag it as sold and secure it in the basement. He pulled the online ad while we were still on the phone, and reiterated what owner Bob had said, about the deposit being refundable if she played it and didn't like it. I thought that was pretty cool, that they would store it for a month, but then return the deposit based on the whims of a 12 year old girl. John said he was that confident she would love it after playing it.
I dropped a couple of phone calls over the month once we had picked a travel date to reassure them we were still coming; then yesterday we drove up, met Bob, and picked up the cello.
Before committing Bob insisted we find an empty room and left us alone to test drive the cello. My daughter really appreciated that he didn't stand in front of her while she was playing it to ask "do you like it"? He left us in private, which I thought was pretty classy. Immediately she lit up in a grin and after tuning and some scales and a tune or two she gave a thumbs up; so I went out and gave Bob her decision, and paid him the balance.
What a nice group of guys that own and run Stoughton Music! All phone calls were low pressure, professional, informative. The inventory includes every manner of stringed instrument (even violas! - even mandarins!) were affordable and nice.
Spoke with Bob some more about his own passions for music and his Berkelee School background. He gave me a tour of the music classrooms, and there were several music lessons going on while we were there.
Stoughton Music is a nice stringed Music boutique, owned and run by musicians. I would highly recommend this place for anyone looking to buy an instrument with a string on it, from near or far. Or take lessons if they live in the area. They made the purchase of our daughter's first cello a wonderful experience!
