Garage Sale

1/30 Prompt: Write a story that includes the following items: breath mint, violin, and calendar.

         “I’d like an opinion of this gourd Mr. Blakely; I’d like the pegs replaced, a new fingerboard and any loosed connections fixed… Of course, it needs strings… I’m not accustomed to playing on gut, but I’d like to have some nice strings and a new bridge fitted.”

         Blakely, took the violin from Preston and immediately recognized the style of the old instrument. “Where did you get this Preston?” Blakely, moved to his desk and carefully placed the violin on his desk calendar, and to avert at least some of the damp moldy smell of the violin, he popped three Altoid peppermints in his mouth. He pulled over a 5 power lighted magnifying lamp and lit up the violin paying particular attention to the scroll.

         “It was at a garage sale down by my house. A lady wanted 15 dollars for it, said it was a real Strad and laughed real hard pounding her knee. Said her husband won it in a poker game in ’53… been in the closet ever since.”

         Blakely observed: The violin scroll was a superb imitation of masters Antonio Stradivari and Alessandro Gagliano pointing toward Nicolo Gagliano as maker. Nicolo’s mastery had been in his ability to mimic that part of Stradivari’s workmanship as a whole. Though, it is believed young Gagliano never worked in the shops of Nicolo Amati alongside Antonio Stradivari and his father Alessandro. His unique eye and ear for detail among the Viol family and his ability to reproduce masterpieces as Stradivari himself, advanced his reputation; excepting varnish, this had left him among those imitated and for centuries his instruments had been among those mistaken as created by the master Stradivari himself.

         “Preston, this violin is worth 350,000 dollars, are you going to carry it around in your truck, or what?...”

(297 words)
Afterword:          For those of you who might be confused about the abrupt ending and statement by Mr. Blakely in this story, maybe a little explanation will help. I've done quite a bit of violin repair in my day, and have come across some really nice violins ("fiddles") we call them in the country-western circuit... or "gourds" if they are really cheap fiddles that play okay and get you by in a pinch.
         This is why I used all the slang in this flash story. This was about a Texas circuit contest fiddler named Preston, who was hitting garage sales for a new sound and happened upon this "gourd" that he wanted Blakely to fix up. But on inspection, Mr. Blakely found out that this was actually a violin that was a few hundred years old and worth a bunch of money... Since these Texas fiddlers are generally traveling the contest circuit in a pickup and bouncing around on back country roads he blurted out the last statement about carrying the violin around in his truck.
         In real life, Preston would probably sell the violin, and give Blakely anywhere between a 10-40% finders fee... mainly for just being honest about the deal. Luthiers honest like Blakely are sometimes hard to find, but in the end the honesty pays off, because Preston would spread the word like wildfire, and Blakely would have more business than he could handle within a few months.

         Hope you enjoyed the story!