inheritance." thank you for watching and remember that you cannot take it with you. you have a strange inheritance story that you would love to share with us? we would love to hear it. go to our webs show that touches base with you folks. "strange inheritance." >> a world famed musician dies. >> his love. his heart. his voice. >> it's more than 300 years old and could be worth many millions. this strange inheritance is more than about money, it's about a father's legacy. >> it was clear to us that he did not want it to be hidden away. ♪ jamie: i'm jamie colby, and i'm

on cape cod massachusetts, heading to the small town of wesley. i'm here to learn about a strange inheritance that shaped a family's life for half a century. >> my name is elena. in 2011, my sister and i inherited an extraordinary object from our father. >> this was my father's home for many years. he and my mother built it in 1955. >> elena's father was bernard greenhouse who died at the age of 95 in 2011. greenhouse spent most of his career playing with with this group. which capitulated to fame. >> he was very warm and very charming. but very involved with

his work. and he traveled all the time as he became more and more successful. >> as one of the world's premiere cellists. he figured he should be playing one of the world's finest cellos. he began to search for an instrument equal to his talent. >> he went to dealers and instrument shops. wherever he went, he said, have you heard any rumors about great cellos? jamie: in 1957, he found one in the west german city of a/k/a n. your father came home with something he longed for, searched for? >> i was very young. but i knew he found something very important. (?) jamie: very important, indeed. it was a stradivarius. crafted in italy around 1707 by the master of them all: antonio stradivarius. it even has its own

title. the countess. sound expensive? it was. >> it was a huge sum of money for us, for our family. and it made a huge difference in our lives to pay it off over many years. jamie: dealers estimate he paid around $100,000. an astronomical sum in the 19 50s when the average house sold for 18,000. for greenhouse, the instrument became a part of him. >> he called it his love. his treasure. his heart. his voice. every superlative. (?) jamie: at the height of his career, greenhouse performed nearly 200 times per year. >> i always wanted to hop in the cello case and travel with my father. jamie: when greenhouse wasn't in concert, he taught at the manhattan school of music, and

here at home in his cape cod studio. this is where elena played the cello as a child. >> you sometime put your name in his appointment book to try to get time with him in lieu of a lesson erasing the student that wasn't coming. >> i did that to get an hour of his time. not a cello lesson. stradivarius?u ever play the >> no. never. jamie: why? >> i never played well enough to play the stradivarius. jamie: by whose opinion? >> i guess by my father's. but i never wanted to. jamie: can i hear him play? >> i would love it. ♪ having the music is wonderful. hard, but wonderful. ♪ isn't it beautiful?

haunting. jamie: wow. what's the first thing you do when you have to decide whether to keep or sell the family jewel? >> i think the first question you ask yourself is, do you have any use for it or love for the family jewel? and i think a big part of it also is, can you afford to keep the family jewel? jamie: the financial implications of this strange inheritance worries elena and her husband who are both nearing retirement. >> insurance. storage. and coming up, of course, with the taxes that the government wants. jamie: did you hear from them? >> no, they said let them keep the inheritance. we have so many other people. yes, of course. jamie: does that weigh into whether you have to sell

something. whether you have to pay taxes? >> absolutely. jamie: what should they do? they decided it's too expensive to keep the stradivarius. they're keenly aware that a successful auction could yield millions. quite a nice nest egg in retirement. but selling a 300-year-old stradivarius is no easy undertaking. >> it's a cutthroat world in the world of musical instruments. we understood all kinds of things that could go wrong. >> first, our "strange inheritance" quiz question. what percentage of an inheritance does the federal government currently tax? 30%, 40%, or 50%? the answer,

in the nation, we know how it feels when you aren't treated like a priority. we do things differently. we'll take care of it. we put members first. join the nation. thank you. ♪ nationwide is on your side >> so what percentage of an inheritance does the federal government currently tax? the answer is b. 40%. after the first $5.3 million are deducted. jamie: when master cellist bernard dies at 85. his heirs face a quandary. what to do with his beloved stradivarius worth millions of dollars. >> my father, in his will left the cello to me and to my sister. he left no instructions. he was unable to

confront the sale of the cello. and he preferred to let us figure it out so that he could have it to the very last day of his life. jamie: i'm in boston to understand how elena and her family deal with their strange inheritance. elena does her homework and sells the strad through chris rooney. he's a cellist, someone who makes and repairs stringed instruments. >> how do you decide what bernard's stradivarius is worth? >> well, i think the first thing you have to evaluate, the quality. it helps to know what the market history has been. in the case of this cello, we did know what other stradivarius cellos had sold for. and we could compare the quality of this one to those.

jamie: back in 2002, a similar cello sold for $5 million. but over the past several years, collectors have driven the price of rare instruments way up. each one has its own history. a unique story in whether it fetches a six, seven, or eight figure price at auction. nobody knows this cello's story better than elena's husband. nicholas. a novelist by trade. nicholas wrote an entire book about the instrument. it's the countess. it explains the pain staking restoration back in the 1990s. >> the wear-and-tear of such instruments is high. aside from the physical stress, there's change in climate. change in temperature. change in humidity. at a certain point, the cello was almost as

weary as he. >> nicholas' book describes a harrowing process. the cello sat in pieces for months while some of its wood was patched. >> bernie got more and more restless and more and more ready to have his heart's darling returned. he said then i will never let it go again. and he never did. >> but he did play the strad for another decade. in the last years of his life, bernard became so attached to the cello that he slept with it. every serious bidder will demand that the countess has no significant flaws. >> in this case, we did a ct scan of the cello. jamie: like a doctor does? >> yes. jamie: is that unusual. >> we don't do it very often, but there were questions if there was a crack. >> chris rooney called me one day here in the shop and said, john, i have this cello that i

need ct scanned right away. >> chris flies to a hospital in minnesota where experts are ready to diagnosis the patient. the worry, vast sums could be wiped from this sale if the countess has cracks or wormholes made inside the cello by tiny larva. >> would that equate to thousands of dollars? hundreds of thousands of dollars? >> another quiz question. in 2013, a picasso painting sold. what's the record for a stradivarius? stradivarius? the answer in a moment. intercourse that's painful due noboto menopausal changesit... it's not likely to go away on its own.

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>> so what's the highest price ever paid for a stradivarius instrument? the answer is b. $15.9 million for the lady blood violin sold in london in 2011. jamie: in the fall of 2011, the heirs of bernard greenhouse anxiously await the ct scan on the stradivarius. millions of dollars are at stake. radiologist steven performed a scan just like this one. >> the diseases that affect an old cello is caused by two things. one is cracks. the other abnormality is wormholes. channeled through wood until sometimes there's hardly any original wood left. jamie: what exactly is happening as it goes through?

>> the ct scanner produces x-rays which are high-energy beams in very thin sheets. jamie: this is the actual ct scan of the stradivarius. chris shares with me his bottom line. >> this cello has been in constant use. it's been cared for beautifully. it's always been a player's instrument. but there are cracks. jamie: whatever tiny cracks there might be, they don't affect the cello's unique sound. chris is able to set the official opening bid for bernard's stradivarius cello at $6.2 million. there's just one hitch: the delbankos might not accept the highest build if it's just from a rich investor who wants to lock it into a vault. >> the cello is only

half itself if unheard. it had been his express desire and conviction that it be played. jamie: and you made a decision that the strad was better in the hands of someone who could play it than on the shelf of someone who could pay for it? >> potentially pay more for it. we didn't want it on a shelf. >> they're able to look at all the factors. choose one of the bids. >> chris agrees on the conditions. it's not every day you get to sell a 300-year-old stradivarius. off he goes with the countess on a world-marketing tour. >> all the cellos that i showed it to were completely shocked about the sound. all of them said it was the best cello they had ever played. jamie: i had to wonder, is the sound of a strad really so

divine? they blindfolded musicians having them play violins. most said they preferred the sound of modern instruments. i asked mch mikal to play two cellos for me. not telling me which is which. can you play each one to see if someone who do not know as much as you, can tell the difference. you listen. what do you think? jamie: that was spectacular. to me, that sounds as good as it gets. beautiful. >> try this one.

♪ jamie: i have to say, that the sound sounded to me richer. deeper -- >> you have a good ear. jamie: really? >> this is a good quality modern cello. couple years ago. this is mikal's cello. what year? >> 1780. jamie: if i were a student of yours, could you teach me to play one note? >> sure. chris, would you let me? >> i suppose. i sense hesitation. >> no. i trust you. am i hurting the value of this cello? >> yes. i'm sorry. i better stop. returning to the tale of the countess of stain

line, it is not long before the bids start coming in. in boston, chris sits down with the delbankos to pick a buyer. >> what was the emotion in the room when you opened the first big for elena to look at. >> you know, there wasn't a dry eye in the room. this cello was so much apart of her life and signifies her relationship to her father. >> saying goodbye to the countess was more painfupainful than i expected it to be. (?) we sat down in a little seating group in his office. we put the as the seating group and i began to feel more and more upset. and we just closed the case. and i've never seen it again. jamie: in the end, the greenhouse heirs accept a bid. it comes not from a virtuvirtuoso, but

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jamie: eight months after virtuoso cellist greenhouse dies, his heirs accept a secret bid on their stradivarius cello. the price: all the auctioneer will say is that it's significantly higher than the $6.2 million opening bid. jamie: what's significantly higher than 6.2 million? >> the reason i'm not disclosing the price is out of respect to the buyer. a fair bid is 15 to 20% higher. is it between 15% and 50%? >> good try. [laughter] >> okay. so i tried. and the delbankos are keeping it a secret as well.

were they able to honor the countess' wish. the buyer as it turns out, is a canadian billionaire. she decides to permanently loan the countess to a 20-year-old virtuoso named stefan petro. >> i've known about bernard greenhouse for years. he's a huge figure in music history to have the chance to even touch his cello was just an honor. ♪ after the auction, the delbankos never intended to see the countess again. >> welcome. jamie: but then we offered them the chance to meet stefan for the first time at the carriage house near boston. ♪ as i listen, i can't

help, but think that if stefan performs as long as greenhouse did, the countess of stainlein will be heard for many decades to come. >> that was lovely. so good to hear you play. >> what a pleasure to meet both of you. really. >> really. that was very beautiful. >> i was quite nervous actually. >> what a great pleasure. >> pleasure. >> there she is. jamie: so in this tale of music and money, the delbankos seem satisfied that they have found a way to split the difference. >> more money might have made a difference in your life. how do you walk away

from that? >> there's never enough, if you think in those terms. an extra million or six would hardly have mattered. >> i think it was a very special strad, and i think we're really happy with the outcome. jamie: before we go, i want to share this last thought. years ago, back in the old days, bernard greenhouse and the trio could count on a break for the airlines when they had to fly the cello allowing them to buy a child seat -- after seeing the name cello on the ticket and said, mr. greenhouse, how old is your son cello, to which bernard laughed, winked and responded, 250 years old. i'm jamie colby. thank you so much for joining us on "strange inheritance." don't forget, you can't take it with you. do you have a "strange

inheritance" story you'd like to share with us? we'd love to hear it. send me an email or go to our website, strangeinheritance.com every town has its secrets. >> tara's life and social life was complicated. >> she competed in 19 pageants. >> tara grinstead. >> she was magnetic. >> she was supposed to come to her mother's. >> and she said tara was missing. no one knows where she is. >> the mother was frantic. >> we checked every well in the county. >> swamps and ponds and abandoned wells. >> we don't know what happened to her. >> i saw a latex glove. >> we have prints and dna. >> she has been in l