Jacob

Was snakewood from South America readily available in Italy c1700?

What kind(s) of wood would have been used for bows at the time of Stradivari in Italy?

Who apart from the Cremonese installed separate bass bars? Were there any violin making traditions doing this without necessarily following the Cremonese example? Apart from other Italian schools of making - Milan, Naples, Venice - I'm thinking about French, English, German, Austrian and Bohemian traditions. Or did these all eventually "convert" to the Cremonese method from originally doing intergrated bars?

Van de Geest had several labels, but it always had his name on it. The violin about which I posted has a faclimile Gagliano label in it, something which van de Geest never did.

Thanks for all the responses, much appreciated.

The back is cleated. The inside of the pegbox is varnished, not blackened. Here is another shot of a rib joint.

LOB at back button over the arching 360mm.

The joint is dead centre; I haven't had the top off, so I can't tell about the linings; no pin holes on the top.

The rib figure running in the same direction all around; shape of the head; the amount of overhang on the corners; the rib corners; the fluting in the throat; the rib heights tapering from 31mm bottom bout up to the upper corners) to 29.5mm at the neck; the extremely close distance of the purfling to the edge; the top arching.

Accidendal omission. It's been added.

This one does not look like the average Markneukirchen product. Not French either. The label is a facsimile Alessandro Gagliano one. Any ideas?

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?