Just moments ago, an acquaintance handed Dr. Glenn Wood a photo of a beautiful violin case that once belonged to Queen Maria Theresa and is now on display in a museum in Vienna—the case, not the photograph. “It’s not a case I’d ever be able to add to my own collection, of course,” Wood laughs, “but now that I know it exists, I do hope to someday take a closer look at it. It’s quite a beautiful case.”

Wood is the author of The Art and History of Violin Cases, a book he published to fill a major void in the trade he recognized some years ago. Now a noted authority on antique violin cases, Wood—a trained microbiologist—was born in England and works in York, Pennsylvania. For years, he was an avid collector, and sometime builder, of violins, but for the past six years his passion has turned almost entirely to cases.

As he describes it, this wood-and-leather love affair came about almost by accident.

“Even before I started collecting them, I was interested in violin cases—but always from the violin’s point of view,” he says. “I would get to thinking, if ever I was lucky enough to acquire a Stradivari, what would I keep it in? What case is good enough to put a Stradivari into? And that made me think, well, Stradivari himself had to decide what to put his own instruments into. I must look into that sometime.

“I happened to be in England on a visit,” he says, “and I stopped into a dealership where I saw these two cases, just sitting there on the floor. They were obviously something I had never seen the like of before, leather-covered, wooden cases with brass studs and so on. I asked about them, saying, ‘Those look really interesting. Those are surely museum pieces. What are they?’ and I was told they were Cremona cases. I knew at that moment I had to have them, they were so unusual, so I bought them there and then.”

Once he got them both home in America, Wood set out to find a book on violin cases so he could learn about the history of his new acquisitions—that’s when he realized that there were no books on violin cases. “There was absolutely nothing published on violin cases at all,” he says. “I couldn’t believe it. There are books on just about everything you can think of. There are books on Bakelite jewelry and Star Wars memorabilia and cookie cutters! Violin cases are at least as interesting as cookie cutters, so I decided I would write the book myself.”

At that point, Wood hadn’t gathered enough material for a book, but as he found an interesting case, he either bought it or took photos. Along the way, he started to develop a feel for how these cases varied, according to the time and the culture that produced them. He noticed that whether a case is 19th-century American or 17th-century Italian, they follow certain cultural trends of material, shapes, styles, and elaborateness of decor.

His book, released last year, covers this entire spectrum, with numerous color photos showing every detail of the cases described. Many are in other private collections, but some are Wood’s own. To date, Wood’s collection contains between 50–60 cases.

Asked the appeal of collecting cases compared to collecting violins, he explains, “Well, it’s very, very expensive to collect violins. It just is. When I started collecting the cases, I was very fortunate to find them for very little money. Two or three hundred dollars could fetch you a very nice case, or at least a very interesting case.”

That is changing.

“I’m seeing far fewer cases these days,” he says, “and when they do appear, they are much more expensive now. I’m wondering if this has anything to do with the book. It was wise for me to have put in a good stock of cases before I published the book, don’t you think? Because they’re now being seen as something that is collectible, while not long ago, this was not the case at all.”

Over the years, he’s spent a great deal of time chasing those violin cases that Stradivari used to deliver his violins to Madrid, violins commissioned by the King of Spain. The violins are still in the royal palace in Madrid, but little is known about the cases. That could change. “Recently, I received an invitation from Queen Sophia to come to Madrid and inspect the cases of the royal collection,” Wood says.

There’s a chance that the elusive Stradivari cases might be hiding somewhere in that collection. “So, more detective work for me,” he laughs. “I suspect that the sleuthing, along with the joy of finding some truly beautiful new item, is the whole appeal of this collecting thing. It’s the pleasure of the hunt, then the pleasure of the find!”

To obtain a copy of The Art and History of Violin Cases, visit authorhouse.com.