Spelman

I'll just be blunt, you ain't busted a grape in the violin industry.

Hey man, are you going to trust a bunch of randos on reddit or dudes (and dudettes) who actually do this for a living? Folks who are at the top of the totem pole in the violin world? Folks come on here all the time and post a blizzard of threads about their violins and how some dude somewhere said something to not offend. Their language and its meaning is pretty clear to folks who actually are in the business. Expensive fiddles that you look at through rose colored glasses look exactly like your fiddle! Hey, part of it was painted so that proves it too! These fiddles you are presenting and the ones that you wish they were related to, look nothing like each other when you actually know what you are looking at/for. It's often called opinion shopping.

Either it's full of water or plastic melted into it and solidified

Well, remember that you did come here and posed your question. When you didn't get answers you liked, you seemed to be questioning their bona fides. These are real, no bullshit, world experts who have offered their opinions. If you have any question about their background, the first place to start would have been by googling their names and finding out who they were. Do not forget they are the ones doing you the favor.

Hi Stringfellow! Welcome to Maestronet! Congratulations on the lovely cello, I hope it continues to give you great joy. You seem to have fallen into a somewhat familiar please-tell-me-who-made-my-instrument cycle/pattern/narrative (hard to think of the right word for it). In any case, we very often see people coming onto the board wishing to determine the definite origins of their instrument. A lot of these folks have gotten indeterminate evaluations from other professionals offline but often ones that have names of various famous makers included. Folks tend to, understandably, glom onto those famous names in hope they have an undiscovered Famoustini. The folks on this board, particularly some of the kind folks who have responded to this thread, are some of the world's leading experts and really know what they are talking about. You are actually getting free evaluations that would cost quite a bit in real life! When these folks explain that this instrument is not a Celebertini made instrument, the owners of said instrument are often crestfallen. What almost always happens is the owner questions the opinions of these world-level experts and asks them to justify their (free!) opinion. Oftentimes pictures of megabuck instruments are put up and declared to look exactly the same, or at least close enough, as their beloved musical companion. These experts sometimes will then just ignore folks who seek to cast aspersions on their hard won expertise and indirectly call into question their excellent reputations...all because they said that you didn't win the value lottery with your particular instrument. The world of identifying instruments is a very, very difficult field to become a trusted voice in. It only comes after decades are spent repairing, handling, selling, making, etc. thousands and thousands of instruments. They can see things that are obvious to them and absoulutely invisible to those without the equivalent experience. These experts often give quite short answers (they are free!) that they are completely confident in and a non-expert implying they really don't know what they are talking about can be very offputting. Remember always that if it were as easy to be a violin expert, everyone would be a violin expert! At the end of the day, you have several of the world's best looking at your instrument and offering their opinions. You did win the (free!) experts lottery by finding this site! FWIW, deep down, none of this should really matter. If your cello has given you a lifetime of joy and continues to do so, that is really what is invaluable. Now, get off the internet and go practice!

Hey man (?), that new one looks great and definitely goes with your chinrest. It's kind of a no brainer for me. A little gold bling is cool.

Chopsticks? Pens?

Hey, if a student presented to me a completely banged up fiddle that sounded like a million bucks but was going for $1500 - $2000, I wouldn't automatically say no. I'd want to make sure the gnarly-but-stable repairs hadn't moved for a period of decades and if it allowed the student to access a nicer instrument for the cost of a less-nice one, I'd say go for it. I'd want some kind of assurance in writing that if the gnarly repairs fail, the shop would fix it on their own nickel. I don't mind these kinds of "players' fiddles," they can represent an amazing opportunity for the player whose pockets are short. No one at this price point gives a fonk what the resale value is. Honestly, of all the fiddles my students have purchased (all well north of $2k) holding their value has only been touched upon a very few times. Players want tools, dealers want profit and the two do not necessarily agree. If anyone has a sweet splined bow out there, let me know! I've got a $20 in my pocket I'll happily trade you for it!

Hi Chris, Welcome to Maestronet! You probably don't know but Jacob Saunders is a world class expert on these types of instruments, his reputation in the industry is excellent. He is basing his evaluation on myriad details that he knows to look for and can recognize what they are. (That is why certain photos and angles are requested for online evaluation.) This is based on decades of work and handling, restoring, selling, etc. of thousands and thousands of instruments. If the details were super easy for someone with little to no background to recognize, then there would be no such thing as a violin expert! Everybody would be, lol. It can be a little like a highly qualified and experienced doctor who takes one look at you, tells you what's wrong, and leaves. You are sometimes left with the info you sought but how they got to it seems insanely quick and can come off as curt. You are getting an opinion on your fiddle from one of the top experts, free! Still, having a 200+ year old fiddle is really cool! How's it sound?

Looks like the figure looks like quilting but it's hard to see all of it.

Yeah! I just got a '57 Fender Custom Champ that I'm using as a head into a 12" Celestion Gold speaker cab (an old and broken Hot Rod Deluxe, the cab is still great though). NOS Mullard and RCA tubes. Boss reverb and Fishman Platinum preamp, that's it. I think people dislike efiddles because the cheap ones sound *terrible* (and maybe they are also expecting a solidbody to act and sound like an acoustic fiddle).

I love them, all my fiddles save one have pernambuco tailpieces. Most have pernambuco pegs and end pins. My Roth has a pernambuco chinrest as well (which I think looks great with the varnish). I removed an ebony, BdH tailpiece from my Roth and replaced it with a pernambuco one and was genuinely surprised at the positive effect. I will agree with the violinist who says it helps with projection, power, and overtones. Maybe all the difference was the weight? The setups were done by a very well respected luthier and I don't think they would have screwed up the afterlength to such a degree that the ebony one severely underperformed. The quality of the tailpieces themselves was top notch. I just can't get over the idea that if the tailpiece plays such an important role in the fiddle's sound, putting one made of a super resonant wood would have minimal impact. I have a BdH pernambuco tailpiece on my solidbody electric and swapping that in opened up the tone very nicely. The setup on that instrument has also been done by very respected luthiers. The efiddle is a good test bed for strings and tailpieces since that is about 99% of the sound. Changing the tailpiece had a definite impact on the tone(s) I am able to pull out of it. (I can bore everyone with the rest of the rig if anyone wants.) I even have run Passione Solo strings on it to good effect, currently it has Warchal The Beast on it, also to good effect.

I give up

Oh no, it most certainly was. No "supposedly" or "whatever." A real holocaust survivor and the 70 years he spent with his violin before donating it to a school for less advantaged but very driven children. "Joe's Violin is a 2016 American short documentary film directed by Kahane Cooperman, and produced by Kahane Cooperman and Raphaela Neihausen, that follows a moment in the life of a Polish survivor of the Holocaust from the time he decides to drop off his 70-year-old violin during a local instrument drive through the violin's acquisition by a new owner, a 12-year-old girl from the Bronx, and recounts how the experience changes both their lives." Nominated for an Oscar, I would really encourage everyone to watch it. Have a box of tissues nearby!

Yes, I want to be very clear that I appreciate the voluntarily donated time and hard earned expertise of the experts on this board. I have be fortunate enough to get to know some of them IRL and count them among my fiddle friends. This is in no way meant to impugn their generosity! I also am not talking about the folks who are wanting a free appraisal and ride on the coattails of the experts in order to maximize any profit they are looking for. Super curt answers are certainly warranted there. It's more the folks who post pictures about their family heirlooms and often write very sweet stories about those violins. I have no reason to doubt they are telling the truth or may have been unfortunately misled by accepted family lore. I would love if we could find a way to respond to those folks in a more gentle manner, one that would not cause any extra work for the experts lending their opinion. Again, I've seen some responses from those folks who were hurt by the harshly presented news that their great grandpa's violin really isn't anything special (materially speaking!). Responding to those folks with an "FU" is not something that I find funny but rather mean-spirited. Sometimes it takes folks time to screw up the courage to present their instruments. Sometimes they have been wondering for years what the instrument was and just very eagerly found Maestronet. Again, I am not trying to be ungrateful to the collective shared wisdom on this board. Over the 30 years I've been here I have learned so much. I am very happy when I can share some of this knowledge with my students, I think learning about the instrument is vital to someone learning to play it. Thank you to all for all of the time you have spent making the Pegbox the place it is.