Blank face

Actually I can't find no reason why it shouldn't be a 19th century bohemian "paesant" cello. The Testore chest of drawer is abused so often, I won't even trust in every elderly certified reference object. This kind is often auctioned as "possibly italian", what includes possibly from elsewhere, too. Didn't I post this a while ago in a similar thread? (1891 non-italian)

My remark wasn't about science vers. alchemy, but about organizing a shop and selling it's products in an economical modern way. But maybe this wasn't what you were thinking of, although you started with production numbers.

Nürnberger was one of the most faked bow brands in the 20th century.

If he had a concept, it might have been a more progressive than alchemy, rather something like this (and more elaborated used by his epigones like Vuillaume): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_fetishism

I would second that. The book shows an early Franz Albert jun. with a similar head and frog model, described as nickel screwed, but with the first period stamp without serifs and Umlaut. The bow itself looks ok for an early F. A. Nürnberger, but the stamp appears to be spurious. A possibility is that it was sold unbranded in the first place (not unusual), but restamped later. The adjuster looks slightly too slender for the stick, it could be a later replacement, too, possibly artificially antiqued.

Maybe mitre isn't the right expression; it means, that one rib, usually the outer one, is covering the other. This happens with inside mould (1) as well as with outside (2), but not with built on the back construction with later installed corner blocks (3). An exception is the "french cornerblockology" which is described here; it appears like built with a mould, though it isn't: From the exterior it looks like 4 (outside mould), only one end grain is visible..

Thanks for the new views. These don't look like mitred inside mould rib joints, so the violin isn't Mittenwald or from a related origin. Maybe someone like Peter Ratcliff or Martin Swan could give more information if it's English?

The main difference between old English and South German/Austrian in't the shape of the scroll (and there is much more and much different than "Kloz" within the last), but in the way to construct the ribs. While the British, as far as I'm aware, used a built on the back construction with symmetrical corner blocks and rib joints, sometimes the ribs in a groove of the bottom, the Mittenwald/Danubian school built the ribs with an internal mould, resulting in corner blocks shorter in the C bouts with linings morticed in the blocks and mitred rib joints. This features aren't visible at the photos. Furthermore you could look if the front scroll flutings are carved "to the bitter end" or stopping somewhere before.

This looks very close IMO.

In this period (early 20th century) this is also common at Vogtland violins (as well as outside mould constructed). I have seen much like this of saxon origin, but no Mirecourts with rib joints clamped together. BTW, "high linings" are a bit different (higher) in my eyes.

The label seems to be one of the grammatically misspelled Nicolaus Amatus Cremona Hieronymus filius Antonius nepos versions of more or less modern origin. The purfling difference is IMO within the variations of handmade stripes. The violin could be of southern german origin, too, if the inside work points to an inside mould construction. Possibly the lower rib was one piece in the beginning, the flames seem to have the same direction?

I have absolutely no clue what's french about the linings or top block, nor "purfling thickness". This all goes along with usual Vogtland work (and "Czech", as it means the Schönbach region, is a part of it). Once more, at least the rib joints are untypical for a french outside mould used in the assumed period, as well as for the older built around preglued blocks method. Anything else sounds like guessing.

There are some features, especially the rib joints pointing to a build on the back construction, the scroll with the small rounded eye and the varnish. Nothing of this is usually french.

Wood trade across the Atlantic ocean happened since some hundred years, of course. The most known is birdseye maple, which is said to be of american origin, but used in Europe throughout the centuries. If there were Vogtland violin makers/workers immigrated to the USA and employed in workshops there in the end of the 19th century, using their traditional working methods (incld. division of labour), I don't know how it should be possible to tell their products apart from European.

In both violins I can't find anything what makes them exclusively american, neither wood, varnish, flutings etc., nor could ever exclude a Saxon origin. This wood figure is rare, but I've seen it sometimes at german maple, too.