Blank face

That's how this late examples can look in "real". Often without metal slide when made in the "Vuillaume" way.

Which park? Some parks can be dangerous places, especially at night.

This isn't political, though it is surely promoting the escalation on political or social issues. MN was always confrontative, but the special quality rising was once called "I'm holier than you" with all consequences. BTW, I would be rather offended, too, if someone started to compare my children with violins.

Sorry to pick you, not because you did it, just when you are naming it. All this Selbstbeweihräucherung about alleged politeness sounds hypocritical recalling that many of the most worse insults, usually disguised as "humour", were coming from a certain gang of cowboys, not only in this thread but also in many others before. VdA's quote was just the top of the iceberg. I'm watching this phenomena growing since about two years now, probably not accidentally.

Just thought of another thread. Somebody was proud of buying what I described for these 150$, but it was regarded as rude to call it what it was. So you did an endlessly better job to buy this for 35. I'm assuming Mirecourt because of the short rib corners, the flat eyed scroll with short throat and in the main the one piece belly plate. Also the varnish seems to be typical IMO.

Seems to be Mirecourt late 19th century. What I would call a mostly well preserved instrument with character and always worth a good service. Also I would recommend to buy this for 150 from Ebay, in opposite to "sadly destroyed not well maintained, stripped and revarnished, in need of many repairs but nonetheless cute and enjoyable heaps of glued together woods", vulgo called junk fiddle (oops, I did it again).

There wasn‘t anything inadequate to the OP, just well founded opinions about her violin when she asked for exactly this, wether you or she liked it or even not. When you are starting to joke about mass murdering in this context I’m finished here.

Seriously, is your excuse now to be the new Village idiot?

Not the first time that we are reading this phrase, and not the first time by people starting (or ending) many of their contributions with "I know nothing". There are other violin forums in the internet where one could ask and receive lots of meaningless responses like "enjoy" and "how does it sound?", but maybe the reason for many to ask here is that you will get serious answers by people doing this work as their daily living. So when the OP was asking "What can you tell me about" it wasn't discussed only monetary value, but first "Is it genuine", what was answered in the first few posts, and after that questions about it's use as a musical instrument and what it would take to make it enjoyable, or if the necessary money for these actions should be better inversted in or saved for a different instrument. Nothing else. So I could say that it's making me sad, very sad that this efforts are dismissed as cantankerous or "dull and ignorant", but the truth is that I don't care. I don't care if the OP now enjoys her violin or might later regret it, or what certain readers might think of it, but me and some others do care a bit about many people out there possibly wondering about "should I buy this "great rare old Italian labelled" 150 $ Ebay violin" and are taking this as a reference.

Maybe! Of course I didn't mean that they all have sweaty hands, but that it was a fashion once to grab the violin around the lower bout while resting.

We discussed this models at several occasions, for example here https://maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/339335-a-200-year-old-cornerless-cello-signed-by-chanot/&tab=comments#comment-782195

Interesting that there are many old french violins featuring this wear pattern at the lower treble wing, f.i. http://www.geigen-fischer.de/portfolio/atelier-j-p-thibout-1840/, for Martin's credit https://www.martinswanviolins.com/jean-francois-aldric-violin/ The back usually shows it at the opposite side, so I'm pretty sure that it's from a sweaty grab, maybe common to French players?

I guess I was the first mentioning faked label.....but take your price, I'm not jealous.

Yup! From Southern France?

It's not rude, but just true. There wasn't such a thing like a "Rinaldi copy" in late 19th Vogtland production. Such violins weren't made as copies of particular makers (and Rinaldi was hardly kown in Saxony during this period) but like it was technically possible and randomly labelled from big sheets.The label here is clearly a rather recently made photo"copy". It's hard to comment on reported statements of unknown luthiers, especially if they (as it appears here) tried to be kind to a customer (what's a nice attitude), so I didn't yet. When I had realized that you did the pegs by yourself,maybe I had rather said "not so bad for a DIY beginner", or maybe not. It's surely more kind to say "I couldn't sell you something like that for the price" than "I'm not dealing with junk". Obviously he tried to minimize your costs, but I'm doubting that it is possible to adjust a proper bridge to this destroyed central area without pressing out the deformations in a cast before, and also a new fingerboard won't make much sense without a neck reset, or one will end up with a bridge of an unproper dimension. So this "repairs" appear to be a sort of emergency at lowest costs, but not to make a really usable instrument out of it in the long run. That's the way I'm understanding the statements, too. At least you came here to ask about your purchase and mustn't be surprised about responses. Within serious posters here is a consens not to encourage uninformed people to buy junk violins from Ebay, to their own benefit. This was the message of the majority of posts here.