scan of the stradivarius.res with me his bottom line. >> this cello has been in constant use since 1800. and it's always been a player's instrument. so, it's been cared for beautifully. but there are cracks. >> 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 greenhouse's stradivari cello at a cool $6.2 million. there's just one hitch. the delbancos might not accept the highest bid if it's from such rich investor who just wants to lock the countess away in a vault. >> a cello is only half, perhaps not even half, itself if unheard. it had been his expressed desire and conviction that it be played. >> 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 would pay more for it? >> well, potentially pay more for it, but we just didn't want it on a shelf. >> so, the idea was that they would be able to open the bids, look at all the factors -- the price, who

the real thing here, julie, is that vladimir putin has played this thing like a stradivarius. he went in with a limited incurrings with a clear set of objectives, which was to stave assad regime and put the momentum and the military effort back into the government forces, which he has done, and now he's minimized the cost, the risk, and the complexity of that operation by withdrawing some but not all of those troops. he's done a pretty good job. >> isis is sayi ining it retali by killing five russian soldiers in palmyra. so, i mean, is this the shades of crimea where russia said it had no troops when they were clearly there, the so-called freedom fighters, were actually russian soldiers? >> well, that could be. they could have been special operations forces that got trapped out or, you know, the other group that's a bigger liar than the russians is isis. so you've got two sets of liar, and this goes back to the old conundrum. if a roman told you that all romans were liars, would you believe him? so right now it's a mess on the battlefield. it always has been a mess. and you ha

like the pegs, bridge, and strings of a fine stradivarius, the components of his instrument -- his voice, and teeth -- have to be just so. >> he roused people to the flag, if you like, with his voice and the way he delivered his lines. >> unfortunately, reports nigel cudlipp, the heir in this "strange inheritance" story, churchill treats his dentures not the way maestros treat their violins, but how british rock stars treat their guitars. >> churchill, when he was angry, would put his thumb under the teeth and flick them across the room. and my father always said that he could tell how well the war was going by how far they flew across the room. things were really bad when they hit the opposite wall. nigel's dad, derek, a mild-mannered 26-year-old dental tech, is churchill's denture repairman. >> my father would be quite anxious about the whole thing. churchill was not a man who was to be messed with. he was quite an impatient man. in the dentist's chair, he would have a cigar in one hand, a brandy in the other. >> and an odd demand well-suited to derek's skills -- make sure those false