bean_fidhleir

If it's a substandard job, take it back for re-do. If he tells you that's his standard of workmanship, write it off to experience and warn other people away.

quote: Originally posted by: pahdah_hound The seller is an occasional poster on this forum. He is very experienced at identification and quite knowledgable. He is usually accurate in his attributions. Well, heaven knows I'm so non-expert that I can barely spell the word, but the typeface on that label surely looks anachronistic to me, as does what I can see of the substrate, and while I've seen that distinctive 'swan neck' sort of head (albeit more gracefully proportioned) on Austrian fiddles from Linz and Vienna, I've not seen it on ones from anywhere else. Which isn't to say that they aren't lying around in heaps somewhere, just that they don't seem to routinely appear in photos. Is that sort of head characteristic of that maker as claimed? I could believe English from the mingy corners.

quote: Originally posted by: Soundboot First of all a taxpayer funded arts council exists to bring the arts to society but the wrong people get the money. I saw many, many extremely talented musicians struggling on the U.K. music scene. It's tough to make a living as an musician if you live outside of London and even there it's tough. The Arts Council tends to focus on things like opera and ballet and also abstract things that not many people are interested in. Seeing as opera and ballet audiences are usually wealthy it seems the wrong place to be putting the money. All it does is drive up the fee that the celeb artists can call and the arts councils will keep feeding them. If the arts council is doing its job right it should be supporting talented (resident) artists who might otherwise end up being forced to change career. This should be where the money goes first not opera houses. There are talented musicians in all fields. Classical music probably gets the best funding, jazz gets a small look in and other fields are neglected entirely. You'll perhaps have heard the Corries's caustic song about that ( 'I retired from the Army with an MBE / And the Scottish Arts Council beckoned me ... We look down on the taste of the ordinary man / Simple enjoyment is not our plan ... It's awfully jolly, spending other people's lolly....')

The label is total rubbish, of course. Late 18th/early 19th c. Austrian? http://cgi.ebay.com/Outstandin...08QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

quote: Originally posted by: FINPROF If wealth cannot be created then I guess music cannot be created or art cannot be created. Maybe check your logic on this? 'If God doesn't exist then I guess we don't exist.' One doesn't follow from the other.

quote: Originally posted by: DR. S Very thoughful post bean-fidhleir. I may be wrong, I always recognize that possibility, but simply declaring that I am wrong doesn't make it so. This where I go Nah-nah-na-na-nah ;-) You making ex-cathedra pronouncements doesn't make you right, either. So neener neener back atcha The position you put out is 'Econ 101' only in Chicago-school schools. Other places, it's not. As chronos here has gently pointed out, (and Paul Hawken has elsewhere), costs are not adequately accounted for in this magical 'wealth from nothing' theory beloved of the theologians of capitalism. Wealth 'creation' is actually robbery, since it enriches the few at the expense of the rest of us. (And the difference between the theology --it comes from nothing-- and the reality --it comes from our common wealth-- bids fair to kill all higher-order life. Ours might be the last generation to die of old age.) But the owners of Maestronet seem not to be interested in supporting non-music-related discussion, so I'll stop here.

I question whether the copper was exposed by a chemical reaction. Silver is pretty resistant. I'd blame mechanical friction. Sulphur blackening should be removed often, as it can become permanent (I got distracted one day and left a sterling piece in a sulphur solution longer than I intended -- it's still black/grey. I tried every de-tarnishing trick I and several more experienced silversmiths could think of, with no success. Very annoying.)

How about 'scroll side'?

Someone sure snarfed it quick enough when it was re-listed! It looks a nice fiddle, apart from the baby-puke yellow color (but we can hope that's an artefact).

I think they do have an issue. Good security should prevent anyone from wedging in their own pages (i.e., inserting an outside page into the legitimate page stream as though it belonged to ebay, with the intent of capturing information). But I'm fairly sure that people can do that at ebay, mainly because I think some kid did it and caught me (someone caught me, for sure, and I can recall having a sinking feeling when, after 'verifying' my credit card information, the next page was out of logical sequence.) Ebay, of all companies, should be rock-solid-secure, but I get the feeling that they slough that off as they do so many other responsibilities.

quote: Originally posted by: DR. S Economics 101: And you're wrong about the rest of it, too.

He struck me as someone highly intelligent and talented who was on the verge of collapse because of how trapped he felt in the life his parents had shaped for him. I've always wondered whether he was ever able to pull together a life that he himself could identify with and feel good about. Anyone know?

quote: Originally posted by: kathyk I'm not seeing anything, does it matter if it's an LCD display? I think so. I don't really understand the technology completely, but I don't think LCD displays get refreshed in the same way CRTs do -- I think an LCD is more like a plasma panel: the pixels have to have electricity applied to them all the time in order to be visible. So one doesn't get the repeated flash as the electron guns are swept back and forth down the screen 75 or 85 times a second to re-excite the phosphor globs, as happens with a CRT.

quote: Originally posted by: skiingfiddler There's one picture I don't understand, the side view. Is the curve seen along the back a shadow projected onto the cloth or is that really the arching of the back? It's the cloth being reflected in the varnish, I think.

Our Ron Humphrey (ron1) is researching his work and has a site http://www.reindahlregistry.com There's also this article: http://www.grandrapids-mn.com/...ry_id=173957&view=text

The round form (u) has its origin in early-mediaeval scribal work; the classical Romans used the sharp form (v) for both consonant and vowel, as we do the y, today. The mediaeval northern-Euro scribes created a rule for writing that said, as an aid to pronunciation for people whose reading ability was shaky, which was most people, use the round form before consonants and the sharp form before vowels. Whence our usage.

quote: Originally posted by: solveg Now, on the other hand, I hate* it when people assume that my programs and equipment are so good that all I have to do is push a button. But why? Such people obviously aren't in possession of the facts. If they thought the quality of your work was due to your camera being possessed by the ghost of Bourke-White, would your reaction be the same, or would you just smile and quietly think them a daftie?

quote: Originally posted by: Andres Sender at his level he had every right to claim credit for the quality of sound he got from that instrument. aha! I think I now understand your original question, Andres. I wasn't suggesting that 'a decent humility' should forbid response, but rather that treating a silly --essentially mindless-- comment as a threat that needed to be countered indicates a surprising internal fragility. Someone with better balance would have seen the comment for what it was --momentary cognitive slippage that would be deeply embarrassing in retrospect-- taken pity on her, and let her off with a smiled agreement that yes, that fiddle is a wonderful instrument and a joy to play. Her comment wasn't a threat to his reputation or livelihood, so he had no real-world need to 'claim credit' in that way. (There's an anecdote about a big corporate customer protesting a bill submitted by Steinmetz. It was for something like $10K, and the corporation's agent said that was ridiculous since all he'd done was adjust a single control and it had taken him five minutes at the most. Steinmetz agreed, took back the bill, scribbled on it, and handed it back. Now it read 'Adjusting the control: $5; Knowing what control to adjust: $9,995)

quote: Originally posted by: Andres SenderBean--truthfully I am hard-pressed to imagine how to do so just now, but in any case I think I have a better grasp of what you're saying so perhaps it's just as well.

quote: Originally posted by: Andres Sender Bean, is your assumption that people are affronted in these situations based on a sense that without such an emotional motivation, no one would dare to assert their own value since it is such 'bad form'? I'm not sure I understand your question, Andres. Could you possibly paraphrase it?

Oh, were you the photographer in the anecdote? I didn't know that. Speaking only for myself, of course, I find that when I'm feeling sarcastic, it's because I'm upset about the situation.

I always wonder whether people who get affronted when someone ignorantly attributes their skill to their fiddle or camera or whatever really feel secure in themselves. Why should it bother me when some onlooker thinks that it's my chisel pen that does the lovely lettering? It's only a mistake, and more to the point it's their mistake and rather a silly one too. It doesn't harm me in any way. Why get upset?

The Chinese surely do love that red, don't they?

quote: Originally posted by: Lundberg THe Enigma is for real. I have counted this castle a dozen times among eBay violins. Is it the same fiddle making the rounds? is it multiple copies of a fiddle that has a castle for a trademark? Is it the same person trying to get rid of the same fiddle under as many disguises as they can come up with? These inlaid fiddles with or without the fancy edges and similar feature prominently in the catalogs ca. 1880-1920. There were a lot of them made!

I second the electric violin idea, if he shows interest. Also, perhaps fiddle music would be more engaging. I know that I enjoy listening to, e.g., Vivaldi --but I have no interest in playing it. I like knees-up music. If your kid likes the guitar, perhaps it's because that repertoire is more lively and less cut-and-dried than orchestral violin?