Strad O Various Jr.

We don't have any experts that can identify a Stradivari from pictures, no one does.

Shill bidding seems to be rampant on the goodwill auctions

Goodwill buys one of their own violins again, look for it to be relisted soon.

Only an idiot would regraduate a 1924 Roth!

I recently purchased a 1937 EH Roth production 1714 Strad model (one of the lower models) which uses the Brand name Oscar C Meinel instead of Roth, the Roth company has confirmed to me that Oscar C Meinel was a trade name used on genuine Roths. I was somewhat ridiculed on a previous thread when I said that Roth violins often have liners inset into corner blocks. Well this violin has the liners not only set into the corner blocks from BOTH sides, but also set into the top and bottom blocks, and the liners go in square full width, not to a point like Mittenwald liners, also the c bout ribs are feathered into the lower ribs, so that the lower rib makes the termination, not joined in the middle like one would expect for an external mold, so its more than likely this was built on an internal mold. This isn't the first Roth I have seen with liners going into the bottom blocks, but I must admit I haven't had the top off most of the Roth's I have worked on.

I had a post war FRAMUS stand up bass with a one piece back, not slab cut and definitely not plywood. Hard to believe, I know.

I guess they're calling it a double overhand knot except that the loop is going up through the tailpiece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_overhand_knot This is what they are calling a surgeon's knot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgeon's_knot

no not even close, and overhand knot with an extra twist

I used to think these rolling fitting tools were useful for rough fitting a bridge to save time on the final fitting, until I started noticing the soundpost moving large amounts from the process

no nothing like that, its just an overhand knot with one more twist

a surgeon's knot is an overhand knot turned over one more time, I believe, that's what I mean, and I'm talking about the tailgut, not the strings, isn't that the topic?

I do a surgeons knot and add a couple drops of super glue to the knot

When a cheap violin has a Stradivari label, we don't refer to it as my Stradivari violin!

Does anything rule out China?

i think most of us know what attributed to means by now, hardly proof of anything other than that someone claims it is by Stradivari