bean_fidhleir

awwwwwwwww...that's a shame (I wondered how you were going to escape)

1920s, Michael?

What makes it even more interesting is that, as far as I can tell, that Amati label appears to have been printed by flatbed letterpress, a nice touch. Now if I could just determine whether the paper is laid or wove....

They all look like student fiddles, to me, with that sort of 'pro-forma' airbrushed contouring/'antiquing' they have.

Quote: it is definitely Benedict, ending in ct. Looking again at the label, I can see that what appears to be a final 'd' is actually a ct. I agree with you on the date alteration, Glenn, but I don't think I do on the -d/-ct question. When I look at how thin that 'crossbar' is compared to the ink laydown of the rest of the letter, and then compare it to the 't' in 'compuesto', I see it as something in the paper or (probably) dirt, but not a crossbar. Also, to read it as a -ct would mean the letters are badly jammed together, but the rest of the label is in a very nice, round, well-formed hand, which doesn't seem to match up.

Jesse, are you going to cancel this thing out before the end and sell it to the first bidder or something? 'Stunned' isn't really an adequate description of my feelings when I see that someone has bid $1000. I'm not sure you'd be safe dealing with anyone who'd do that unless they're joking.

If the heat of setting plaster is a problem, why not use slaked plaster, or perhaps the more jelly-like alginates, or even liquid latex? (I ask purely out of interest--I'm sure there must be some reason why such media aren't used, but I can't think of what it might be)

Nearly $300. Astonishing. I wonder whether people are looking at the 'attribution' but not reading it aloud in their mind's ear.

Quote: Tone is rather deep on the lower registers but I find it difficult to play... Any thoughts? What is it that's difficult about playing it? It looks a very nice Stainer-ish fiddle.

I wonder what the point of that was--made for a left-handed player, perhaps? (I also liked the 'antique ... 2003' part )

This one is approaching $200 already. Unbelievable! Jesse, do you think the high bidder will actually pay up?

That table certainly isn't up to the standard of the scroll. I wonder whether it's original. Yet from the MOP inlays, someone must have thought he did a good thing, and was proud of it. I find it more saddening than obnoxious, really.

This is a different instrument, unless I'm misunderstanding which one you mean. It looks as though this one's scroll was broken at some time, doesn't it? I'm trying to think of what that boxy sort of outline reminds me of. Also that strange looking double-purfling. Is there someone who's noted for that, or is this just someone's 19th-century kitchen-sink model? Does the scroll look Viennese to anyone else? That also looks like a 'scratch graft', though it's hard to tell.

Well, he does at least claim that he'll take back the instrument and refund the price if the instrument is not as described. (Ich akzeptiert [sic] die Rückgabe bei voller Erstattung des Geldbetrags, wenn der Kauf gegenstand nicht wie beschrieben ist.)

What a completely beautiful fiddle that is, Michael!

Quote: I doubt if the hardanger was the inspiration. I'm sorry for having been unclear, Rich. I was only suggesting that all 'guitar-shaped' fiddles, including the Jåstadfele, might owe their shape to some earlier model -a mediaeval Arabian guitar, maybe? but probably a viol, I suppose- that didn't appeal to Andrea Amati (or whoever we're identifying as the maker of the first modern violin).

Quote: I knew I had seen the shape in museums and reference books on the history of violin development. Actually, I have a friend who recently commisioned and took possession of a newly made Hardanger Hybrid- the same tuning and playing as a normal violin, with pretty much the same shape, just lots of extra sympathetic strings and longer pegbox (AND a carved dragon head guarding the pegs). He plays it just the same, but the sound is somewhat different, like a Viola D"Amore with all the sympathetic vibrations happening! Very neat! Reminds me of the sound in "Forth Eolingas" from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. I've heard one of those too! I love the sound. The "hourglass" violins are usually called "guitar-shaped" (I couldn't remember that, at first). Here's someone who has them on offer: http://www.trademarkguitar.citymax.com/cat.../63593/4001.htm

It's funny, this "birdseye" wood looks more like what I've always called "burl" wood. I had some birdseye maple flooring in the parlor of the first house I bought (built in 1890), and it looked completely different to this stuff. The flooring had all little tiny rings, but was otherwise straight-grained, and looked to me as though it came from a tree that had had millions of little sucker branches growing out of it. How strange.

Quote: How does one make the attachments visible on the same page? Put your photo somewhere on the web (you can't just have it on your computer unless your computer is a webserver). Copy the url into your post where you want the picture to appear. Put {img} in front of the url and {/img} after it, for example {img}http://some-site.com/photos/my_bench.jpg{img} but use square brackets around the 'img' and '/img', not curly ones. I used curly ones so that Maestronet's software wouldn't think I'm really putting in an image and 'helpfully' eat the tags. Hope that helps.

Quote: Anyone know where violins of this shape were more likely to be made? I know there are US makers who do them. I think the shape just comes from an older tradition, though. For example, if you look at the picture of what appears to be the oldest known Hardanger fiddle, the Jåstadsfele dated 1651, http://www.hfaa.org/images/gamelfele.jpg you can see the resemblance.

Quote: If you could settle for a cheaper bird's eye fiddle (that might sound as good or better for all we know) here's one: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...me=STRK:MEWA:IT 'All sales are final' doesn't sound very good to me, does it to you?

Quote: That would make sense to me if the other 2 S's on the label didn't look normal. No, actually it's okay. There was a rule for when to use which one: the "rolled-up s" was used at the ends of syllables, and the "long s" was used everywhere else.

[quoteI notice that although the original high bidder did not pay up, the seller did not leave any negative feedback- WHY? Perhaps because it's a waste of time to leave negative feedback for one's sockpuppets?

Quote: Quote: They look in amazingly good condition for their claimed age. I don't know about that. To my eye, I see wear where I would expect to see it if the violin was not aged by the maker but only by modern playing. I agree that the signs of wear look real, not something faked up by the maker, but I think my point might be that, to me at least(!), they don't look as though they've spent any significant amount of time being lovingly played. They look as though they were played a little and picked up some careless nicks and scuffs in the process, but really spent almost all their 80 years in a case somewhere.

Quote: I would appreciate comments about the violins sold by "1.geige." He is Daniel Bruckner. Are these nice violins or nice photos of violins? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...ssPageName=WDVW http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...ssPageName=WDVW http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...ssPageName=WDVW Well, he offers a 2-week return period counting from the day of receipt, and a 1-year warranty (I'm not sure why he uses Gewährleistung rather than the more common cognate, Guarantie) They look in amazingly good condition for their claimed age. (edit: it's interesting that in his German-language advert for the Christian Schertl violin he offers a statement of valuation that says it's worth 7500 Euro...but doesn't say who wrote it (himself, I'd be inclined to think))