David Burgess

Aside from the other setup work it needs, the neck appears to be quite crooked, which would not be inexpensive to fix.

Then why did you claim that it was? Scammers are not held in high regard here.

Why do you think it's the "real deal"?

That was Carl Jr.s personal working style, and I don't mind it at all. He did a lot of his work using optical magnification. We've come to know these magnifiers as "Becker Checkers".

Agreed. I think it's a mistake to not incorporate ones personal working style and methods into the final product. Without that, it might as well be just another factory fiddle.

If you know someone else who graduated from the Geigenbauschule in Mittenwald around 1932, we can ask them.

Daryl is right. The step is quite common now from makers all over the world, as well as from upper-echelon restorers when doing neck grafts. The main reasons? 1. At some point in the life of a violin, the fingerboard gluing surface of the neck will probably need to be resurfaced, and it's nice to be able to do this with a plane without shaving off the top of the pegbox, like as happened on so many valuable old violins, wimpifying the original side view of the the scroll. 2. A little extra material allows planing one end or the other to make minor adjustment in fingerboard projection, which always changes over time. I don't see any advantage in failing to anticipate what will typically happen to a violin over its lifetime. And the step isn't really anything new. The Weisshaar shop was already doing this when I started working there in 1971, and I will presume that this wasn't some innovation of Hans, but was standard practice much earlier in the Hermann and Wurlitzer shops.

Yup, older than dirt!

Too many darned David(e)s! Really confusing. But I had the name before you did, so it is you who will need to choose a new name.

I'm cutting to full depth. Jabbing the cutting blade into a bar of soap periodically helps a lot. The photo below illustrates the setup. Note the shim clamped against the cutting blade, between the edge guide and the blade, which can be adjusted vertically (separately from the blade) to control the final depth of cut. (Confession: This is not the cutter I actually use any more. The one I use now has the handle below the plate rather than above, more like the one HoGo illustrated, but it's apart for further tweaking and re-designing right now)

One side at a time.

Stradivari using shellac? Why not? By Stradivari's time, trade with the orient was common. With the Americas too.

I thought that it might be an interesting frame of reference, if available. I have no idea how common it is (aside from auction prices being published, often along with an ownership chain for the super-expensive instruments), so I am unable to answer your specific question.

Here's an overview of the competitions which have taken place, and may in the future: (I didn't check if it goes to the same site that Davide refrenced) https://www.corilon.com/us/library/towns-and-regions/international-violin-making-competitions-ente-triennale-cremona-concours-etienne-vatelot-vsa-competition-mittenwald-violin-making-competition Not all the information is completely accurate. For example, the VSA Competition takes place every two years (pandemics and other factors permitting), not every year.

Does anyone know who ended up with the bass Roger Hargrave featured here, and how much was paid?