Guido

Thanks Brad, yes, the front hole. Very useful. If one was to use a specialised stepped drill bit finding proper guidance through the back hole, I assume there is no benefit in using the original screw to set the hole during repair? One could just fill and re-drill the front hole? My main concern was how best to fill the front hole if you don't want to turn a bushing (as you describe for the back hole). Super glue and saw dust is probably the best option? I have some water based wood-filler that I was considering but I suspect it will crumble and not last very long. Else, epoxy might be an option, but if super glue and saw dust is durable enough that might be even easier. My other concern with filling was that the hole would be lubricated, jeopardizing the success of any glue based filling (rather than drilling out contaminated wood and making a bushing). Is there a good way of cleaning the font hole of lubricant? I have heard about standing the handle in acetone and soaking it for a while (also to clean butt cracks). But I have not tried that. Any suggestions for cleaning/ degreasing?

I am familiar with the approach of bushing the screw hole, in particular to repair a crack at the butt end. However, if only the screw hole is worn, I’m wondering if people have tried simpler approaches to filling and re-drilling the screw hole? I’m thinking some sort of wood filler or epoxy. Any thoughts?

Thanks, I really should get a copy of that.

@Blank face knows a thing or two about bows, so take his word over mine. I think the bow looks quite nice. Even to me it seems quite clear that it is German/ Markneukirchen, but I would not dare go further. As for the mounts they may even be silver. This can be hard to discern and very hard from photos. An honest shop would be able to tell you if it is silver or nickel; and you should believe them; or not buy from them in the first place. If it is silver mounted the price is rather attractive. If it is nickel mounted, the price might still be ok. It's not so much the difference in value between nickel and silver that matters, but the fact that bow makers used silver for the better quality bows (and gold mounts for the best). But having said that, some nickel mounted bows can be very good (and expensive) and command a higher price tag than some silver mounted bows. Further, bows are a very personal thing. Some players spend a lifetime unsatisfied and always looking for that perfect bow. If you really like this one and and are very happy with how it plays, you should consider yourself lucky. The condition looks good. Some issues may be show stoppers and hard to detect/ see. A pearl slide and face plate are minor issues, each somewhere around or less the price of a re-hair. While I'd always want to make sure the face plate in ok for structural reasons, I'd be more forgiving with the pearl slide (and probably would not feel the urge to replace the one shown in your pictures).

The filler seems to be an inlay made of Pernambuco. To get a proper/straight/flat gluing surface to match stick and inlay it is conceivable that the stick wear was enlarged. My first impression was that the bow looked like it could be Louis M, but I deflect to the much greater expertise of Marin Swan above. The hill-type slide is odd indeed. Never seen anything like it on any Morizot at all. Maybe we get @fiddlecollector to chime in?

The seller is a professional who has been selling fake instruments and bows out of Hannover under various eBay names over many years. He is well known. You do not need to message him as you will not receive an honest answer anyways.

I think (but am not sure) that the brass screws to fix the liner are a German thing. The pinned button looks interesting but the head is a bit of a let-down.

Could be a decent instrument for the price, possibly Romanian. The label is certainly fake and your mindset needs a gearshift now before you do anything else.

This list applies to a narrow window of trade violins, and even by the 1920s most Markneukirchen violins will tick most of the Mittenwald boxes, bar the ones related to internal mould construction. And when you apply the list to something else, like a French factory fiddle, you get the above gibberish ;-)

Strad is good, Del Gesu is bad, or maybe not, depends…

For nickel you look for traces of green around the edges, for silver you look for black. When they are polished they are hard to distinguish, even less on photos. Also, nickel is not nickel - there are many different alloys running by that name, some looking more, some looking less like silver. Unless the ferrule is not original it would be of the same material as the heal plate (and button). As for the pictures, they could all be silver, but may not be.

I thought these rosewood frog, brass mounted bows with this particular colour of the stick were Japanese. I have seen slightly better grades of these but yes, generally not worth rehairing

I also can't see this resemble anything French, but I could well imagine it would be 20-50 years old and predate anything decent from China. If the linings are let into the corner blocks proper (maybe we can see a photo?), that would pretty much exclude those two origins anyways. And it would pretty much also exclude a production/ trade violin. But before we go any further we should probably establish the situation with corner blocks/ construction method.

I used to be able to take good in-focus photos of labels with my old iPhone 6. But not anymore after upgrading to an XR. The useful distance is just a bit too close for it to be able to focus. I have tried again, and it is a bit better over at the "label eating wasps" thread. But being able to look at it in hand, I'm quite sure we see the right hand part of the number 3 before the 5. In any case, I'd think it is more likely a 1735 with reference to Guarnerius.

And they seem to be quite picky about it. I remember when growing up at my parents house on the balcony outside my room a particular piece of untreated wood attracted them; and they came back each summer for many years and scraped and chewed off wood from the same piece of wood, mining the cellulose to build their nest. They made quite the noise doing it, which I could hear from inside my room. The piece of wood, after many years still only looked like someone had been over it with coarse sand paper, they didn't take much. I would imagine that certain paper, which we had pre-pulped for them, may give them easier access to what they are after. And having found a small old wasp nest inside the the violin with the chewed on label made me connect the dots.

You, when you posted the ever popular piece of American journalism titled "A spray gun for the varnish." But it may have been a practice reserved for the very entry level violins? I had a 1955 Roth which I didn't think was sprayed. Later, Musima sprayed on the varnish (which I was told by someone who worked there); and I have seen post WW2 Gewa violins that were definitely sprayed (see example picture). I guess by the 1970s at the latest it was widespread practice for cheap violins. In any case, it won't be very useful, unless you have a violin that is obviously sprayed you could certainly say it is post WW2. But that may only be relevant for violins you wouldn't usually even look at.

Sometimes labels are damaged for no good reason at all. Here is one observation that may make sense. Attached label looks like some insect may have chewed out some pieces, and there also was a little wasp nest inside this violin. I think that makes a perfect explanation.

Lots of "better" Markies had those features (like the Juzek MA), most likely from new with the OP violin.

The shiny orange one is not worth anything. This kind of violin sells new for $50, and is generally not something anyone should be forced to play. Best option for you is to sell the case for $30. You might get less if you leave the violin in it. As it isn't worth shipping try the local classifieds. The older one does look decent, and provided there is no damage and everything is just so, it would retail north of $1k, depending on the location and the kind of shop where it is offered. Your best option is to find a luthier/shop who gives it a once over and agrees to sell it for you on commission. Your second best option is to put it on ebay as is and see what happens - it'll surely fetch a few hundred.

Nah, certainly not from Mittenwald. But it might be, god forbid, a Nazi.

Thanks everybody. I think one difference of note is that Bubenreuth started to spray the varnish on in the early 1950s, which can often be noticed in an uneven varnish application in the volutes of the scroll. This may be a matter of quality grades though, don't know. As for the label in the OP violin I have three observations. (1) It was not considered for export, as there is no country of origin and it uses German language (Nachahmung von). (2) The date on the label, which is largely missing, had, I'm pretty sure after a closer look, a 35 as the last two digits. So this could have been a 1735 with reference to Guarnerius, or a 1935 with reference to the violin. The latter might be consistent with the lack of export intention at that time. (3) The font on the label looks more modern to me though, but I might be wrong. Anyone into fonts?

German trade violin (not Mittenwald), which I'd describe as mid 20th century. Question is: Bubenreuth or Markneukirchen and just before or not long after the war? Any way of telling?

There are two reasons why people think violins are old: (1) lots of bad repairs and poor condition; (2) crude amateur work which may give an archaic impression. If you see a real Amati that has been treasured and pampered for centuries, most casual observers wouldn't think it's that old. Same with labels, btw. They are in a well protected place and don't really have much of a reason to suffer in appearance at all. If a label looks like yours it is because it was made to look like that, not because of age. Finally, as has been pointed out, labels in violins are of little interest (at least initially). It's the violin that matters. Staring at the label is like examining the tuning pipe that was in the case as part of assessing the violin - why would you do that?

On balance, the OP scroll looks much closer to the real deal than any of the others. Where are the experts?

Here is a German amateur mid 20th.