jacobsaunders

yes

Is that how you do it?

It's a student instrument from the end of the 19th C- from the area near Markneukirchen (Saxony). Wolff would have been the dealer who supplied it to the trade

Labels with ragged edges are always fake, so buy (or better scrounge) yourself a Mark/Schön box elsewhere. You will get a bad reputation on Maestronet, calling crap "interesting"

I remember at my “Meisterprüfung” one of the people said to me “A violin saddle is 42mm long”. I said “why?”, and he answered “because the eyes of the scroll are 42mm wide”. It was an exam, so I had to bite my lip, but I have spent the last 40 years telling anyone who would listen that the bloke is a moronic raving loony nut job, who they should steer well clear of

Why on earth should a Viola "Saddle cut out" be any larger than a violin "cut out?

If you go out of the Dorotheum, take the U6 to Heiligenstadt, then the 400 Bus to Klosterneuburg, you can try out dozens of violins that are light years better than that, and don’t need repairing. I could spend all afternoon telling you Dorotheum anecdotes whilst you are trying them out

For my money, it’s a violin from the end of the 18th C from the Mittenwald region, that has been re varnished, and where some nutter has been doing some purfling practice

Seitz or Seiz is a Mittenwald name. Here however it is obviously a Saxon violin, with it’s through neck probably being earlier than the advertised 1892. Either Seitz was a shopkeeper selling cheap Saxon violins, or if the font of the label reminds you of Microsoft, then it is just a ridiculous fake label that has come in much later

I’m afraid that the op violin is a Mark/Schön Dutzendarbeit, aka “The usual” without a shadow of doubt, and it is only really a matter of calling a spade a spade. Sorry for being a Killjoy

At school I was taught to make the edges 3,5mm top & bottom bouts, 4mm in the middle, and the corners 4,5mm, with the button counting as a corner. I have always done it with a cutting gauge and a chisel. You need to finish the outline first

I’m afraid that it’s a textbook example of “a Usual” (Mark/Schön Dutzendarbeit) which most lightly precedes the existence of Czechoslovakia. Sticking your neck out is your prerogative of course

All speculation, as they say here "für Arsch & Friedrich"

Some Markneukirchen rag & bone man with his wheelbarrow

Don’t forget that there have been “travelling salesmen” criss-crossing Europe for centuries