Carl Stross

Professor Baldwin was mistaken. There is no meaningful contribution by the button as the block is glued ahead of the button i.e. the button pulls on the block, too.

I think it was a needed step but not a "great step". I for one, am glad if the playing field is 100% even. In the same time from a musical perspective is simply not that Earth shattering. Part of the reason is that the old and trusted structures for training conductors do not exists and should they still exists I am not sure women would enjoy ( or even put up with ) the huge amount if extraneous crap those structures inflict on the conductor.

What a stupid thing to say !

But then what is "compete" and what's the Hill label doing there ?

1. Here ?? On Earth ??? 2. For sure. 3. Indeed it does. I wonder what the price would be if the same violins would be if sold without a label as being "new, of unknown origin".

Now, this was an excellent post.

You are absolutely right. Do accept my apologies.

1. No, he did not. Are you confusing me with Danube Fidler ??? ( Or something like that...) . And some categories of violins are priced according to their tone. 2. I believe you. I don't understand what is the exact point we are all missing. You'll remember you promised me a recording of one of your linseed oil treated violins. Still waiting and I am pretty sure you got that microphone by now. 3. You need to change fantastic into good. Lots and lots of luthiers make perfectly usable, good instruments. Some make excellent instruments. I haven't heard a fantastic one yet. 4. Comrade Stross does not deny it. But you should drop the "wonderfully made". They're good, some might be even excellent. That's about it. I've seen some superb Chinese instruments which were made in the 50s though.

I see you miss me. 1. My posts must be approved by the moderator - that means it can take up to two days to show and then they're buried somewhere on the previous pages. Makes posting a waste of time. I chat by email with people I am interested in discussing things with, anyway. 2. The Pegbox seems to be mostly about what sort of violin is this instead of how violins work. I have no interest in the first one. 3. Martin Swan complained my posts are too long. I was explaining why violin necks break off at the block - a very non-trivial thing and my long post irritated some. I apologized and deleted it.

Knapp / Erich Kleiber / Rother / Maazel etc

Nice to know one's efforts are appreciated.

Are you an imbecile, man ? Yes or no would suffice...

He gets it perfectly. His "tone" bit is hidden in the difference between trade and retail price - you did notice all his violins sound good to downright Strady. And he knows tone - he's got a special area on his site, all about tone evaluations. Your idea that I can't ask you 15000DM for a violin Martinvalued at 250DM because I think it sounds "great" ( whatever that is ) AND that should you later discover it to be "worth" much less than that would mean I defrauded you is complete bollocks. But this new idea of the Violin Dealer as caretaker of a client's financial interests is a nice nuance. I believe Danube Fiddler describes pretty accurately a chunk of the violin market from the '70s and up to mid/late '80s when a lot of violins would change hands at often unrecoverable prices based on some perception of tone and mostly directly amongst musicians and in particular Conservatory students.

You would be very hard pressed to find three Top Players of the past 100 or so years who did not chose their instrument based on the opinions of their colleagues. Of late, the opportunities for "choosing" have greatly diminished if not completely vanished and they make do with what they can lay their hands on, for as long as it lasts.

"Concert soloists" is very vague and absolutely no guarantee for any competency besides accurate, quick and vigorous manipulating of the instrument. I knew few people who were not "concert soloists" at one time or another. That aside, the statements you seem unable to find do exist in the form of newspaper interviews, personal letters, third party communications up to the beyond debate act of using a modern violin for most of one's concert activity. You are unfortunately some 50 years removed from the times these things were rather more openly discussed.