This same friend “loaned” my son a cracked and beat up cello. It had falled off the back of a pick up. It’s a great cello. He had it repaired and has had a lot of people rave about it’s quality. The word “loan” is in quotes because she said he could have it forever as long as he used it which he does all the time but to give it back if he stops playing it. He plays five or six instruments.
It's a French instrument, made in Paris in the 1910s by one of the better known luthiers of the time. It was cracked in two places - one across the back and one across the face - but there is a very fine violin repair lady in Midtown Atlanta (she's German, a Bavarian, and very upright and stern, but she knows her business). She repaired it and it sounds like its old self again. The value is greatly reduced by the repairs, but who cares?