After attending Chethams School of music, (and a brief, somewhat ill-judged sojourn into the world of microbiology), Andrew joined Sotheby's in 1978. Initially he worked as an administrator, then a cataloguer. Exposure to the thousands of violins, violas and cellos which pass through a major auction house each year provides a fairly comprehensive training in the identification of makers.
A departmental director for the last seven of his fourteen years in the musical instrument department, Andrew spent much of his time with Sotheby's travelling throughout Europe & the USA, appraising stringed instruments for auction.
In 1991 he set up his own company, Andrew Hooker Violins. The need for more space prompted a move to a redundant Georgian church near Bath in South West England
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