elena does her homework and sells the strad through chris rooney.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