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bean_fidhleir

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Everything posted by bean_fidhleir

  1. So you don't reckon it's just local vernacular work, Jacob?
  2. Leaving aside the (rather obviously) fake antiquing and the slightly "off" model, Jacob, what do you think of what you can see of the workmanship? (Does that neck have a wind in it?)
  3. Didn't I read here on MN years back that the gypsies used to black fiddles like that to get them across borders without strife?
  4. Isn't the rim (I don't know the tech name - the bit outside the purfling) rather fat for anything earlier than 19th c.?
  5. I could bear owning that. Nice maker name, too: "John Build-master" up Engels.
  6. So what's the tip-off, Jacob? The chippy varnish but unreasonably good condition for the claimed age? The not-quite-Stainer pattern? Something completely different?
  7. Do you really mean "value", Jeffrey? Or only "price". I supposed Lyndon was thinking of the fact that anything made in Britain well within living memory should still have some sort of useful documentation attached.
  8. For looks, I prefer the one shown at the site in Taiwan -- the ffs are more Amati-like (to my eye anyway, fwtw).
  9. Lovely looking fiddle. I wish I owned it.
  10. It looks as though someone enjoyed it, tho - they paid to have it rebushed, and wore the hide off it with their right hand -- or with something anyway (I can't really imagine how a hand would create that much wear). So it might be quite a nice player despite its working-class origins.
  11. It's not an M, it's an H. That's just dirt making it look an M. It's definitely been doctored, but it does look like it could be old/original. I could possibly accept Antonius for the first word, but couldn't get "Amati" out of that middle one if you paid me - it's too long.
  12. That's why I included posters, which do live out in the open. Admittedly not usually for 200 years, but then again fiddles don't truly live out in the open either, usually, but rather in as controlled an environment as can be managed. I've little experience with samplers, apart from almost making one while teaching myself crewel, so I can't say anything about them. But as to labels stuck to wood, isn't the hide glue acting as a barrier?
  13. Any 100% unbleached rag paper should do the job. The paper your brother uses is probably bleached and possibly clay-coated, but if you don't mind the brightness, it'll do what you want. In the 16th thru early-19th centuries paper was made by hand a sheet at a time on wire screens, drained and dried naturally. It tended to be somewhat soft and thick compared to modern papers that are dried by squeezing between giant roller drums, often chromed, heated by gas fires. You could even replicate the handwork process yourself if you want to have complete control, it's not high-tech. Here http://raytomasso.co...udio_paper.html is a guy who looks like he could do it all for you. Not only does he make handmade rag paper, he even (Addie will be as enchanted as I) runs an old treadle clamshell! Kshooga kshooga kshooga kshooga
  14. Well, if you actually mean mediaeval (handmade books), very very few were produced on anything but skin, which of course looks very different to paper. The Chinese made rag paper ages before the Euros did, and the Egyptians and to some extent other Med. peoples made a sort of paper from papyrus, and I think I remember reading that the Aztecs had experimented, but even Gutenberg printed his first stuff on skin (of course it was cos he was trying to trick people into thinking it was all handwork). Honestly, I'd have to be shown a certified-no-kidding-old fiddle label that had gone grotty from the atmosphere alone before I'd believe it. Dirty from dust, yes. Stained from spills, yes. Mildew, yes. Insect leavings, yes. But from normal domestic atmosphere? I can't think of any process that would produce discoloration. I even did a quick google to check whether there was something I'd missed out all these years apropos old paper going yellow. No mention. But if you have some cites I'd be very eager to read them.
  15. A Maggini?? Really???? I might as well drukke mej i närmste sjö, then, because I'll be hedgehogged if it looks like any Maggini I've ever seen a photo of. edit: Oh, it's called a Maggini by the Verband Schweizerischer Geigenbaumeister. They must have meant some other Maggini, who perhaps lives in Südtirol and normally makes cuckoo clocks.
  16. To me, my Stainer lionhead av is "brown". Old rag paper in its natural state is off-white, technically about 5% warm grey, neither bright white (they didn't bleach it) nor "brown" (they didn't stain it either). It can go medium-grey if filthy, or become "brown" through being stained, e.g., by rust, but mere age will leave it substantially unchanged. You can verify this in most large libraries: ask to see their pre-1800 printed material. Even the least-important books and posters from the 18th c. will still be that warm, unbleached optical white. They just don't react to the atmosphere the way modern wood-pulp paper does. Incunabula (15th-c. printed material) is really instructive: works by Johannes Gutenberg, Will Caxton, and Jan van Wynkyn (Wynkyn de Wo(o)rde) are as pristine today as they were the day they left the press ca. 500 years ago. So if you're seeing brown-from-age labels, they're definitely no older than the late 19th c.
  17. I agree that the label looks hokey, but for a different reason. Real paper from that time was made of rags, and doesn't go brown. You can look at printed material from the 18th c. (or even the 16th) and it might show many signs of age and ill-treatment including discolored places, but having gone brown won't be one of them. It's wood-pulp paper that goes brown (and brittle).
  18. Allegedly that's a real story, just said by one of the friends he regularly played with, not Heifetz or Piatigorsky. Supposedly he'd be fiddling happily along but then he'd start thinking about a physics problem and lose track.
  19. Nah, 'san obvious forgery, computer-generated and not more than ten years old.
  20. I guess I'm glad I didn't see the listing...I'd probably have at least auditioned it. [sigh]
  21. Speaking for myself only, I find/found too many of the posts by DrV and Lorenzo (or should it be DrV-Lorenzo? They're very alike) mean-spirited and subtly accusational. They definitely reduced my enjoyment of the threads in which they appeared, so I'm glad that you're taking steps, Jeffrey.
  22. Indeed. Next he'll be claiming Magyar is an Indo-Euro language.
  23. Those photos are interesting. All the descriptions I've ever seen of the original Damascus (Syrian) work say that one should have to glance the light off the surface to see the figure, that in top-quality work it's almost imperceptible. I wonder whether this, with its bold figuring, might be easily-made "bazaar quality" like most carpets.
  24. Thanks, Jacob. You're right, and I just did. The title of that forum is a bit misleading, and so I didn't read the description.
  25. The thread titles in the directory should revert to unbold when the thread has been visited, but they don't.
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