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Blank face

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Posts posted by Blank face

  1. 4 hours ago, Dr. Mark said:

    Wikipedia indicates a number of ways, none of which I have the font at hand to write.  Vinculum notation seems easiest - I think it's just an X with a bar over it, then covered by a three-sided box.  The X indicates 10, the bar multiplies by 1.000, and the three-sided box multiplies what's under it by 100.000.  Otherwise I need to have a backwards C (denoted - in the following) to write CCCCCCCI-------.  and other such foolishness.

    In Germany (I don't know about other EU countries) it's not allowed to give your children officially ridiculous and humilating names. Obviously this brings us in trouble now with freedom fighters.

    BTW Mercedes and Cadillac were poetic female names in the first place before getting trademarks for cars.

  2. 1 hour ago, Brad Dorsey said:

    If this were true, plywood would self-destruct, but it doesn’t.  Why not?

    I’ve seen a lot of older plywood, f.e. at furniture, cracking on the outer, thinner layers multiple times along the grain, while the inner stronger layers were holding the stability.

  3. 10 hours ago, Lidocaine said:

    Yes. It is grafted.

    In your opinion, is this one of those massive factory produced violin, or by an individual maker? 
     

    what is the style of the ff holes? 
    what features of this violin give you hint that it’s perhaps from Saxony/ West Bohemian in first half of 19th century?

     

    Is it the highly arched construction? 
    Color of the varnish? More elongated form of the violin dimension? Style of the ff holes?

    A mixture of all this, and the fact that I've seen several of the same style before. The time frame would be in the period of the start of mass production.

    The impression about the scroll is that it looks younger than the body and doesn't match the figure. The violin surely starts with a throughneck, which is often replace the one or other way - with a grafted on original or complete new scroll/neck.

  4. 15 minutes ago, fiddlecollector said:

    Its hard to tell if there is an actual cheek crack on not as there is remants of something stuck all over half the head ??

    In my eyes both side views show a long crack, of course with a lot of gunk above, and the view of the face looks as if there’s a damage at the audience side, too.

    IMG_1015.jpeg

    IMG_1014.jpeg

  5. 1 hour ago, jacobsaunders said:

    feel free

    I'll take it, Vienna in the spring is nice.;)

    56 minutes ago, fiddlecollector said:

    No BF its amourette and could also be something to do with Maire.

     

    Probably, at a second glance, but difficult to tell by the photos, but definitely not Abeille. Sadly there's a cheek crack at the head, or maybe even at both sides (only the player's side is visible), missing ferule, outer button ring etc., so a lot of work and some devaluation.

    24 minutes ago, Chamberlain said:

    It’s hard to see but around the eye was that worn with a possible replacement dot or could there have been another ring there? 

    Both pearl eyes look like replacements, so hard to know if there was a ring in the original state.

  6. The scroll looks very nice to me, but there’s a wide gap at the button, looks like filled with some ugly glue or the like. 
    The body was vandalized by stripping most of the original varnish except at the outer parts of the belly, not to mention the badly repaired long cracks, so it might be difficult to decide if both parts belonged together from the start.

    In any case more in focus photos, according to the description in the pinned thread, would be necessary to tell something meaningful.

  7. Many years ago a customer brought a violin, appearing to me as a well made early 19th century Markneukirchen, bearing an Amati label. At the upper edge of it there was a narrow stripe of another, older label visible, and he asked me if I could try to remove the other. I did my best, soaking and lifting slowly and very carefully the upper, and there it was reading "Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis". I told him I wasn't sure wether this was the original.

  8. 6 minutes ago, M Alpert said:

    Interesting observations. Having worked in Czech for some years, I noticed that at least some Bohemians would like more credit for their input (to the incredible stream of instruments...) Nice to hear you giving some, at least for their sake!

    I haven't seen Babbitt's books yet, do they talk in any more detail about the makers and methods there?

    If you can understand German the Kauert book https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Sächsische-Landesstelle-für-Museumswesen/dp/3865300790

    gives a good overview on the economical side (though the price is enormous for a rather thin booklet, and it’s nearly sold out everywhere). Don’t know about the Babbitt books, they seem to be more easily available in America than at this side.

  9. At least these instruments aren’t showing much of Cremose traditions. If one would bet that a workshop  doing serial production during this period, no matter in which country, used Markneukirchen boxes as starting point, there’s a big chance to win.

  10. 2 hours ago, tetler said:

    Especially for the cottage industry. Do you know any literature that goes into detail on these stylistic things?

    Not to my knowledge. The second volume of Zoebisch (post 1850 instruments) has pictures of many for comparison, but not from the lower grades. I guess the topic isn’t of a great interest for a rewarding research.

    One can make a rough separation between the throughneck/carved bar period before 1890 and the post 1900s with more “modern” approach.

  11. 14 minutes ago, The Violoncello said:

    Looking only at the body, I thought it was a cello made by Italy's Officina Claudio Monteverdi too. However, the scrolls were different.

    What do you think that Officina  Monteverdis were made from? :) Their scrolls look often simply“Bohemian“.

     

  12. 41 minutes ago, Brad Dorsey said:
    23 hours ago, GeorgeH said:

    …I can't imagine why anybody would buy a new bow with that monstrosity on it….

    I can’t imagine why anybody would buy a new “Skylark” violin, but many thousands of people have.

    Such bows were often sold as a set (violin, case, bow) from the catalogues, so there wasn't much of a choice, was it?;)

  13. 15 hours ago, fiddlecollector said:

    I had onenot so long back with the whole slide and the ring, but it was just the stick.

    One would need to look at each example on it's own to analyze if it's original or a later addition. Deutsche Bogenmacher shows CW Knopfs, pearl stripe decorated, both with (2 out of 6) and without a stabilizing octogonal end ring, so it is a somehow unclear feature anyway.

    BTW, the Tarisio example you posted looks to me later than CW Knopf, in case the frog is original post 1850. But they said, too, that they don't trust in expertising on unbranded old German bows by themselve.:)

  14. One can find occasionally early 20th century instruments from the Markneukirchen/Schönbach region with this scroll edge, sharp uprolled edges and similar fluted ff-tongues. Obviously such boxes were also used by some Italian shops of the time - I don't recall if it was Monzino or a similar firm.

    Edit: It was Cavalli/Officina Monteverdi, showing such edgework and ff, but not the scroll feature.

  15. 1 hour ago, tetler said:

    So they are usually indistinguishable. I think I have seen you (or Jacob?) ascribe violins explicitly to Schönbach on this forum, though. Are there any features that are distinctive for a certain period or something? 

    Wages were much lower on the Bohemian side, so much of the labor intensive rough work was done there and brought over the border for refinement (white boxes f.e., see the interesting picture in the other recent threadhttps://maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/363433-old-markneukirchen-photo-of-old-man/&do=getLastComment

    Because of this there's a tradition, especially of the Markneukirchen makers, to attribute the more unrefined stuff to Schönbach, what's surely not (always) correct.

    Periods can be distinguished by a lot of features like models, varnishs, aspects of workmanship and more. But this would be enough to fill a lot of pages here.

     

  16. 2 hours ago, fiddlecollector said:

    I thought they were something carried over from early Knopfs. heres a photo courtesy of Tarisio ,supposedly a Christian Wilhelm Knopf 1.

     

    christian wilhelm knopf 1.JPG

    Would you think it’s original? I would think that in this case it’s indeed a repair, both the metal slide and the octagonal end ring. The last makes only sense if the stick is weakend by inlaid mop decorations, which are not present at this bow.

    Though it could be well that later copyists took such repairs as model for the fancy style.

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