Jacob

Any ideas on market value?

If one wants to speculate about the case and violin which accompanied the bow, I would guess about the 1920's. Parhaps even earlier.

A customer waltzed in with it. Nice stick.

Yes, that's pretty weird.

Any ideas?

Thanks JacobS, that is very helpful. What needs to happen next is that I win the lotto, take this violin and the real William Luff I've seen (bought in person by the current owner from him), go and visit you, and remunerate you appropriately for an intensive tutorial on this matter. I may not thereby become an "Englishman", but I certainly will gain some insight. Seriously. My sincere thanks to you and other contributors to this thread. All in all, an informative climax to a not-too-bad day. Tomorrow morning it's the Springboks against All Blacks, while I'm holed up in the workshop with work, appointments, and training of an apprentice. But there will be multiple repeats of the game over the weekend. Again, thanks to all for responding.

For a while I thought it might be one of these: https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/browse-the-archive/makers/maker/?Maker_ID=1648 However, no locating pins on the back, and what I remember from the solitary William Luff I had encountered quite a while back, the varnish is not as heavy as on this one.

Hi Martin, the violin is already back with the owner.

Perhaps it is a very good butt joint? I can't tell. The entire instrument has a feel of stoutness about it, I suspect top and back are both of substantial thickness. The sound is very focussed, borderline nasal perhaps, but it hasn't been played for decades, and the setup was dreadful. I replaced the nasty Infeld aluminium fine-tuning tailpiece, the sound post and the bridge, and strung it up with Karneols.

Definitely one-piece bottom rib. Fluting in the throat kind of inbetween: ends beyond 6 o"clock. I can't tell about the corner blocks, I haven't opened the violin. I therefore can't comment on the linings either.

Your thoughts will be appreciated. The instrument is unlabeled.

...in terms of construction method...

Would outside mould be French influence?

Built on-the-back or interior/exterior mold?

Were these instruments made by single makers or in workshops? Are they typically unlabeled?