martin swan

Not to me - it looks bog standard. Brands, labels, serial numbers, these are all a lot easier to fake than a style of making. Having said all that, this bow is kind of intriguing. If it is a fake Bultitude it certainly wouldn't be the only one out there.

It wouldn't be stamped with a serial number until it was completed.

George H, shame on you - don't you know there is a specific, strict direct warning about this? Everyone knows that Jesus spoke English. Don't be surprised of you get a "visit" from one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse ...

There's also the little issue of translation ... I would argue against taking any text too literally, whether it's scripture or a violin label.

I agree with Jacob - looks like an 1880s/1890s JTL to me ...

I'm not aware of Vitelli or Vitello as a trade name, and it certainly doesn't appear in any lists of Italian makers. Given that there are around 1000 Italian labels for every authentic Italian violin, it seems highly unlikely that the OP's financial issues are going to be resolved by the acquisition of this violin. It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a person to acquire an Italian violin at a bargain price ...

Well, it sold at a speculative auction for maybe 4 figures? I wonder how much it sold for before it ended up in auction. Any industrial workshop could produce something like this for a couple of hundred. If they sold it as their own work they would maybe double up if they were lucky. There are really great Brazilian workshops producing super-sharp pernambuco bows with a wholesale cost of $2-300.

Don't mean to be rude, but if it was that clumsy you wouldn't have bought it ...

Exactly!

Everything about a Bultitude is "just so" - he was an incredibly precise worker and he didn't make that mortise. Bow makers use templates and always use the same tools for the same jobs, and the mortises always look the same. Where I am at with this bow is ... 1. I don't believe the button is Bultitude, since the first ring of the button is always short, generally the second cut of the collar is very pronounced, and the buttons tend to be marginally fuller than the sticks. 2. The brand is curiously wonky for Bultitude, who was pretty obsessive about such things .... 3. The rose motif is out of alignment and is a bit scrappy compared to what you'd expect - I haven't seen one with so little detail in the centre 4. The chamfers are sloppy 5. The head is weak, and even allowing for the missing bit of the nose I don't see that there's room behind the silver face to make a nice Bultitude point So on balance I would say at the very least it's a funky composite, at worst it's a copy/fake ...

I agree that this isn't very important. I think it would be more helpful to discuss the entire bow rather than just one small area, otherwise we are in danger of discussing how many angels there are on the head of a pin.

You can get it for £5 less on his website : https://www.ksblutherie.com/instruments

Let's see the rest of the bow ...

The principal point about the mortise on Philip's bow is that it's too short. If someone had whittled out the end with a gouge or a knife it would be longer than normal, not shorter.

I don't quite think the bow is authentic - there were other details that were off, the adjuster, the size and orientation of the "tudor rose" - but I'm really not sure and I would recommend you post the other photos here. It wouldn't have a Hill marking on the faceplate since Bultitude only used the rose frog decoration after he left Hills. I can't see how the skanky routered mortise can be the result of a repair unless there is new wood between the serial number and the "England" stamp, and I don't see any. Besides, if someone was clever enough to insert new wood almost invisibly, would they be cack-handed enough to make such an execrable mortise?