yaumnik

A teacher friend of mine has an older German shop violin which sounded just plain dull when I heard it first. She had a set Visions on. Then, on a recommendation of a local luthier, she had a harp tailpiece installed and put on a fresh set of Peter Infelds. That fiddle came alive, bright with plenty projection (due to Infelds), and tons and tons of rich overtones especially on G and D (harp tailpiece?).

Thank you for the informative confirmation. I recently held a couple of late 1920s Roth XR violins and I must say that their appearance was that of much heavier "antiquing" than mine which is light to moderate which I frankly prefer. I'm wondering about such significant shift in just a year or two in terms of visual appearance/finishing for these violins ... unless my fiddle was part of a commission that specifed "light antique" finishing. Any thoughts on this?

There's no serial #. Wilhelm Roth confirmed it's a 1925 XI-R/72. I don't have any reason to doubt the attribution :-). I'm trying to discern how made for Europe XIR grade compares to the US grades. P.S. This violin has very strong bright sound, loads of projection. I am planning to fit it with a harp style tailpiece and put "warmer" strings like Warchal Amber set.

OK, so for the sake of trying to get somewhere in this discussion I'll share the photos I just made. Also, Mr. Wilhelm Roth let me know that from the archives, it is a Roth and it's a XI-R/72. However, talking to local experts, the label font/appearance + lack of serial number on the stamp + comparison to local XR available violins, the local experts said that this violin was made for the European market, not US. And supposedly, there was a different gradation system/scale for Europe than US market. US market scale was IR for the lowest grade and XIR (aka special commisions) for the top grade. So, can anyone share the info on the European gradation?

I even asked Wilhelm Roth. Haven't gotten it so far.

I admire your unbridled optimism!

Excellent discussion. I just wish that experts here would shed some light on my original question. :-)

Thank you for your replies. To confirm, I am looking for info on gradations of Roth violins made for European market in 1920s. Best, Gary aka "yaumnik"

Hi all, Asking violinmakers and players alike... Anyone using a harp style tailpiece on their violin(s)? What's your general impression vs standard shape in terms of sound projection and tembre? And which strings are being used?

Hi all, My first post in a while. :-) I recently learned that E.H. Roth I had a different gradation for European market than the North American market. For North America, one can easily find this information from a Wiki article on E.H. Roth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Heinrich_Roth#Gradations. From this article, it's known that Roth had 11 grades of various models (mostly Strad and del Gesu) from (Roman numerals) I-R to XI-R. I am calling out on MN experts to help me with the European gradations which I heard were up to 15 different grades if not more. Can anyone help/share this info and also how to correlate North American grades to European ones? Thank you in advance!

THANK YOU! Alex is very appreciative of everyone's help.

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