Someone posted this on another forum and I knew you would be interested. 
http://www.insightsconsulting.biz/Instruments/musicoll.htm
Cheers,
Kathy 
I would dear say this this fellow had a problem with collecting instruments, 
one that would qualify for the need of counselling, however I didn’t see any recorders ( I may of missed them ) but that indicates that he was not completely mad.
To Blackbeer: No, you can’t have one! NO, NO, NO!!!
Robin
Wow…and people here think WHOA is bad? That’s an AMAZING collection…drools over the flutes and those great 19th century clarinets
~Crysania
Out of the 163 items, the first 162 are not worth over an average of $500 apiece, USD, for a total of about $81,000. #63, the square grand piano is over priced too, at $7500. There’s a few unique instruments like the hurdy gurdy, and a Gibson mandolin and archtop guitar. Most all the flutes are like those on ebay that sell for under $250, and all the parlor guitars are neat, some are unique with the MOP fretboards, but way over-priced. I’ll pass, and be about $400,000 richer for doing so. 
I sometimes wish these people wouldn’t do this,
because it’s hard to believe that the playable instruments
are being played, and there are people who would
play 'em. There was a store in New Orleans that
basically sold vintage guitars to Japanese tourists,
who like to collect vintage guitars and whose
friends would videotape them buying their
vintage guitar so they could watch it
for the rest of their lives…Best
Although I will concede that occasionaly an historically important and rare instrument should be preserved for study/research/prosperity etc as far as I can assertain the ones on this list were designed for only one purpose - playing. Unfortunatley we live in a world obsessed with price rather than cost, value or worth. It is gratifying that the majority of ‘fipplers’ do appreciate that the words ‘best’ & ‘better’ are subjective terms and are easily replaced with ‘different’
Remember:
‘The man who knows the price of everything, knows the cost of nothing’
That’s a serious collection of early,mid and late romantic guitars.
Stauffer,Torres,Lacote,Panormo,Martin,Gibson - all have made a profound impression on the history and development of the guitar. The valuation may well reflect this.
The concertina might be useful. And no, you can’t have the autoharp. Some things are better left in the museum,
Perhaps I have expressed myself clumsily, the value of these instruments is undeniably high, but I am asking why does that mean that they - or any ‘valuable’ item - have to have a high price. The price of an item is only what someone is prepared to pay for it, it is not an indication of how important it is.
For example compare the relative prices of say … Penicillin and Diamonds and then decide which one you would rather see the world go without.
Hmp. I did’nt see ANY whistles, and he’s calling the one valve bugle a one valve trumpet.
Oh, the wonders of Ebay.
I have a bushell basket of old horns and stuff I got off of ebay myself.
Maybe the square one is a whistle. It looks like it has 6 holes.
Cheers,
Kathy 
No, i’ve had a couple of those. It’s something they sell to tourists in Peru. Very good wall ornaments. Usually have pictures of llamas or Aztec gods in them. The double barreled one might be a dvojanka, but if so it’s a crude one.
Hey Lark- maybe you could offer something like that for your Squistle line. 
I don’t collect vintage instruments and don’t keep tabs on values. My guess is that the whole collection is valued at about half what you would need to pay for a violin if you aspired to being a concert soloist.
Just glancing through, my first thought was that it was not a wildly overpriced collection. There are quite a few seriously interesting guitars there and there is a huge market in vintage guitars that have driven prices for even fairly recent items right through the roof. You’d have to go through item by item to tell though.
The market for collectables is very volatile when it comes to very rare items of minority interest. For example, there might be ten collectors in the world who badly want copies of a 78 record released in the 20s and only nine known copies. The collector who is missing out might well be prepared to pay a five figure sum for the item. If one more copy is discovered you just might get that amount, especially if you manage to keep its recent discovery a secret. But suppose two more copies are discovered. Waht is the 11th copy worth? Well, on my original assumption, it is worth nowhere near a five figure amount. It will go to a much less desparate collector probably for only a few hundred dollars. But if a new collector comes along who’s a big spender, back the price goes to a five figure mark.
As private collections go, this is impressive enough, but there would be numerous guitar collections worth much more than this. Almost every rock superstar—and there are now dozens of them—has a collection of guitars with a market-value way in excess of this figure, and most of the big-ticket items would only be about 40 or 50 years old.
A Columbia record executive who retired about 10 years ago after a lifetime with the company reputedly had a record collection with a quarter of a million items. A lot of those items would be worth quite a lot now. Not a bad pension scheme, eh, especially considering that he got Columbia products for nothing?
Example: there are several vintage Washburn parlor guitars for sale in
this lot. Compare the prices of Washburn parlor guitars on ebay today,
$300-500, and the only one recieving bids is for $255
The Martin might sell for more, esp if it was the one that belonged to Mark
Twain, but it ain’t. There’s one on ebay right now for around $1600, but
it’s in fine shape with original coffin case.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3701547312&category=359
Some of the roundback Neopolitan mandolins look cool with all the inlay,
but don’t sell big on ebay. And the banjos are all mostly medium to low
range cheapies like you see on eBay too for less than $500, and usually a
lot less. Flutes, same thing except for maybe the Firth, Hall & Pond. The
Charango is worth about $200-300 (I have two of these and play them in
my Andean band). There are some other unique stringed mandoline
family inst., but I still think they’re way over priced. The old wooden
clarinets are unique, and who knows…they may be worth a lot if they are
made by the right manufacturer.
OK. What would a 1910 Weissenborn be worth? And the Wheatstone? I’m assuming they are in good playing condition of course.
Obviously if your pricing is right Larry, a lot of very old guitars aren’t worth nearly as much as more recent ones. I’m a bit surprised, but, as I say, I don’t keep up with prices. You can pay well over $50,000 for a new guitar right now if you are fussy about what you want.
If I can have that Weissenborn for $500 I’m bidding. I would have thought that a new copy would cost at least $2,000 and perhaps a lot more.
My $500 was an average (just guessing too) for all items, some of those
items aren’t worth over $100, but a few, like the ones I mentioned, are. I
didn’t notice the Wheatstone, but if it’s in prime working condition, could
be worth a few thousand USD. I’ll go look for the Weissenborn.
You talking about this? It’s the only Weissenborn I see…a six string Hawaiian guitar. the Wheatstone looks in rough condition, like a 5-bellows one…nothing said about reeds or condition of bellows. Restored, it could be worth a couple or three thousand. I saw one in perfect condition like it recently sell for $2600, a 31 button anglo w/ 8 bellows. I think a good Anglo is worth as much as an English.
I wasn’t misreading you on the averaging nor disputing your estimate, Larry. I was just a bit surprised that there weren’t some seriously valuable items amongst those very old guitars.
I noticed that the Martin has a day to go. I’ll be interested to see what it eventually sells for. A lot more than the current bid, I would have thought. No mention of the reserve being met yet, as far as I could see.
The spiel mentioned how collectable 1960s Martins are. Of course what it failed to mention is that people buy them to play and a 60s D28 in good nick would play a lot better than this old timer I would have thought. (BTW, if someone has a 1960s D28 going cheaply I’ll take that with the Weissenborn and the Wheatstone thanks. )
That’s the one. It’s played lap style. They have hollow necks and a wonderfully distinctive tone. Nick Harper owns and plays several and, since his success, several people have started making copies but nobody seems to have captured the tone of the originals. The copies would go for several thousand so I asume a playable original would be worth a lot more. But, again, I’m not up to speed on this stuff.