jacobsaunders

How long is a piece of string?

Eric Blot | violinmaker

I won’t let you poke those into my carpet

At €600 I get pretty sarcastic, at €3,000 I think I would get positively abusive

Some years ago, I bought (by mistake) a “super high tech” spike with Titan screw, special carbon rod with, according to the blurb “optimal vibration and transmission characteristics” and so on.. The recommended retail price came to a breath taking €600, and that is before I have undressed the cello to fit it, and put it all back together again. I have asked all cello customers, including those with expensive Italian Celli, and no one is remotely prepared to pay €600 for a spike. If anyone comes to me and wants to try different end-pins, they will be sent to a colleague of mine who I don’t particularly like very much

I had a “Noebe Homburg” cello many years ago. His “System” seems to have been his “Induction Bass Bar” which is basically a normal Bass bar with five chunks sawn out of it. On the one I had, this had provoked loads of cracks. The cello itself was more or less a “usual” with dark brown varnish which had soaked into the wood. It was also very large, i.e. not really a 4/4 cello any more but bigger than that. All together pretty useless.

You are welcome to choose a catalogue from a different year, if you go here, and scroll down to L for Labert Documentation, accès aux archives. (luthiers-mirecourt.com)

Labert was a large factory in Mirecourt as you can see browsing through one of their catalogues Catalogue Mirecourt, Laberte, à la ville de Crémone 1931, instruments de musique. (luthiers-mirecourt.com)

Re. “loudness” I always used to go to orchestra rehearsal on Monday evenings. I remember once trying hard all day to get the best (and most) tone out of a customers cello. Nobody has ever asked me to get their cello too sound “quiet”. That evening we were rehearsing a Mozart violin concerto with Erich Schagerl from the Vienna Philharmonic. It took the conductor maximally 2 seconds to turn to the Celli and say shhhh! Quiet!!, and it went on like that most of the evening. At some point one thinks buggeration, what a stupid profession I have! Incidentally, for those who come looking for a violin that will “cut through and above an orchestra”. Even Mozart knows it doesn’t work like that. Where Mr. Schagerl has his solo, it says “Solo” on my cello score (i.e. shush!), and where he doesn’t have anything it says “Tutti”, which means one can get stuck in. Anyone who wants to “cut through and above” an orchestra would be better off with a piccalo flute

It would be best to choose an out-of-the-way spot, for instance underneath the tailpiece, and test the whole spectrum of solvents, to see which one causes no damage to the original varnish. I think I would start with Nitro-Verdunner, whatever that is in English

at least you can wash the tipp-ex off. Better than if the dope stripped the original varnish off

The arching is perfect

I have a copy, but could find no mention of anyone called Eichheimer

The technisches Museum has a draw with a few Bridges (Pegs, Tailpieces etc.) from the Jaura collection, like the Stadlmann one you link too in its exhibition. The surprise is that they weren't that different to present day ones, certainly not like the star wars ones from Stamm. I’m afraid I don’t know of any other exhibition. About 20 years ago, Eberhard Moosleitner spent several years organising the Technisches Museum Inventory, and he would probably be the most knowledgeable person to ask. I don’t know if he speaks English (he probably does), because I have always spoken German with him. You could find him via the website of his wife, the violin maker Gerlinde Reuterer Geigenbau Reutterer I Über uns

In that case, I presume that the violin is a rural Austrian one, first part of the 19th C.