Jeff White

I feather, most of the time. I am increasingly trying to do less of this as I have seen so much 1/2 edging separate on older jobs and the removal of original wood. Sometimes though, there is not much choice. I've seen some great work by some (Jerry L and others) with scanning and cnc?? work at doing this without removing original wood.

This is a great thread. As a dealer, I find this very interesting. Rue and Nathan have said some really great things for the OP to read. I know Potter went through this a little while ago and has some great advice too. It seems the teacher is not going to be a "commission kickback" problem as he/she stated they want to stay out of it until the end. That's good to hear. Not that I have any issues with a teachers help throughout the process, it's just that this shows they don't have a motive. There are a lot of "sleepers" in the $3-5K range. Better commercial instruments that just hit above their weight. I would agree with the $5-$10K range, but to not shut out the lower range for sleepers. Based on what Martin just stated (open it, love it), you might consider going heavy on the bow and get her the one she loves, going a little lighter on the $ of the violin. As he stated, (and I agree completely)a lot of it is what inspires her. Not everything, but a lot. Dealing with a shop that gives you 100% trade down the road (of what you bought from them), is a good thing to take the pressure off of the decision too.

FWIW.....This violin is open in case anyone wants to see the inside work. Cleaner than some Hopf violins......You can see the label better now. No indication of a through neck.

Agreed, Josh will do a good job for them. I know Rodney Mohr does Gold work on his bows and is quite good (ohio).

Any bowmaker in your area (or where you are comfortable mailing it) who is used to making bows with with gold (most all better makers) can easily handle this (As FC said). I'm not sure if Jerry P does much gold soldering, but it wouldn't surprise me and he would do a good job. I do this all the time on silver (pull the ring, solder, clean up and....), but not on gold. I would just pull it off and run it next door to the jeweler and have him solder it. You really don't want a jeweler removeing that ring and messing with your button.

We will see. It needs a new board and a full set up. Even with a lousy set up and old strings, it sounded surprisingly.....ok.

The edgework, espescially the contouring upsweep before the purfling, is quite similar on the front and the back. The purfling looks the same to me. I have no doubt the top and back are by the maker. What you might be seeing is some area's of poor restoration of the purfling that, I would agree, doesn't look anything like the stock. The neck looks original to me too, FWIW.

Need some help with this one. Looks like amateur work, revarnished, stuck in corner blocks (crudely done). I'm not sure where to distinguish between the amateur's original work and amateur's restorative work. Inside is varnished, looks overall like a very lame attempt to make the instrument look older than it is. Vincenzo Trusiano label. Overall, I"m "guessing" English, Irish amateur work, or the like. LOB 356mm. Any thoughts?

It's actually about 1.5mm in from the edge of the bridge, I don't think I want it any furthur inward, unless it happens to work better that way. I'm probably just going to patch either way.

It's not mine, but possible to be put on consignment. I originally told the consignee that we would have to do this, but was just doubting myself with what I thought might be the "unneccesary" removal of original wood. Your view is appreciated. Thanks.

That is the question. All joking aside, I am looking for some input from dealers as to whether they would SP patch this, or not. Crack is holding well at the moment and the pressure of the SP and bridge foot are just "east" inside of the crack. Belly is not unusually thin in the area and is no deforming. The crack runs at an angle so that it is deceivingly far from the soundpost in the belly pic, but right next to the post in the pic from inside. The post currently is 1.5mm inside (east) the foot of the bridge. Of course, this bias angle (if you want to call it that) gives much more glueing surface to the crack too. Years ago, and initially when I just looked at this instrument last week, I jumped immediately to having to patch it. I've been moving more in a direction in the last few years of thinking about if that's really the "conservative" approach given it's directly on the post, or where I think the post will ever be. Thoughts?

Label looks like old paper to me, on the thick side. I couldn't get my IPhone to focus at that distance to make the pic of the label sharp, but here it is. No impression into the paper. I'll try to get a better pic with a camera. Yeah, now that I see it online, that's not going to help......

I had this walk into the shop and I had an idea of what "I" think it is, but need some help. My first thought was C.1800 Klingenthal. The location of the SP crack will be another topic. I bounced this off of a colleague and I'm not sure if it's a Carl Christian Hopf, or not. BOB construction, with equalateral blocks put in (later?), probably when the neck graft was done. No sign of a "shadow" of a through neck on the back, but that could just be someone cleaning it up nicely when they did the graft and subsequent neck block. The corners of the plates are what seemed unusual for this area. Pretty broad and fat. Looking through Zobisch, I came across the 2 pics that are posted here. I can't read the German text in Zoebisch, but it seems that the figures for the LOB, and bout measurments, don't really match well with this instrument. The scroll in Zoebisch looks quite different too, but I'm visualizing a workshop of workers combining parts, to a degree..... Anyone have any good pics for Carl Christian Hopf? Is there a "HOPF" book? Am I barking up the wrong tree? Sorry that the pics loaded backwards in order.

Looks like it sold for $826 with premium. Eeek.....Most disturbing is what looks to have been the removal of the original wood in the tip plate area. Head could be restored (blowout with a better pern match and the addition of tip plate wood. A lot to pay for it in that condition. Is that button common on Pfretz? I haven't seen that style of button on any that I've had come through.....

No, they didn't have the C bout liners like that, you are thinking something more like Mittenwald? That inside work looks very much like the inside work of Roth's I have opened. Slight bevels in the blocks and the like. Inside is clean, but I've opened many 100yr old violins that clean before. I'm betting it's a Roth. Has anyone written a good book on Id'ing and history for the Roth firm? Different stamps, labels, constructed grafts/crowns etc. I've always wanted to know where the bows came from, certainly not the shop itself.