What is going on here?

[Stonehedge]

What am I missing here?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=221135703988

[Addie]

Do a google search for MITROHYMI violin.

Either hundreds were made in 1677, or this one is being sold in dozens of places, or...

[lyndon]

looks like an interesting older instrument albeit in not so top condition, i dont really care what the label says

[Will L]

It's a messed up "Hieronymi", as in Antonius Amati/ Hieronymi filius/nepos cremonensis fecit/ 16__ A.D.

[lyndon]

good work will!!

[Stonehedge]

Gentlemen, my question was purely about the instrument merits (or lack of thereof). Current price $2250 with 2 days to go make me feel that either I am missing something or the other guys are. Please share your thoughts.

[lyndon]

could just be because there is a reserve, and buyers are exploring how high the reserve is, unlike a true auction, when you place a high bid well above everyone elses but still below the reserve, ebay automatically post your highest amount (not just above the next lower bidder) until the reserve is met

i dare say if mr pahdah hound was selling the same violin, the price would be this high, it does appear to have a graft, real or fake in the front of the scroll picture, not very good pictures though, no side view of the scroll

[Ratcliffiddles]

"MITROHYMI" Japanese classical maker??

It probably said "Mittenwald".... before being written over

[fiddlecollector]

Looks like an Mittenwald mass produced thing from around 1850-1860

You can see where the drop down saddle has been replaced and it doesnt appear to have ever had a one piece rib as the flame doesnt follow.

[martin swan]

could just be because there is a reserve, and buyers are exploring how high the reserve is, unlike a true auction, when you place a high bid well above everyone elses but still below the reserve, ebay automatically post your highest amount (not just above the next lower bidder) until the reserve is me

This isn't quite right. An auction with a reserve price functions exactly like a normal auction until someone puts in a bid that meets the reserve price, in which case this bid will show the reserve price. On this violin no-one has bid the reserve price, so the bids are showing in exactly the way they would if there was no reserve.

The reserve price seems absurdly high if it's more than $2225 (which it must be)!

There are only two bidders here - one seems very cautious, the other has bid 4 times pretty recklessly within the space of two minute. No comment .....

The front is a mess - who knows about the ribs? It also seems to have a horribly thin neck.

Don't think you're missing anything ...!

[lyndon]

martin i havent tested it for years, but it used to automatically post your highest amount if it was below the reserve, i thought....

peter, will L already proved its says hieronymi not mittenwald, dont you read the posts

[Ratcliffiddles]

It's a messed up "Hieronymi", as in Antonius Amati/ Hieronymi filius/nepos cremonensis fecit/ 16__ A.D.

Looking back, you are probably right(?), although it probably should have said Mittenwald, and I would place earlier than Bob and I don't think later than 1820. Some features make me think it was made further North East than Mittenwald.

[Ratcliffiddles]

peter, will L already proved its says hieronymi not mittenwald, dont you read the posts

I don't think he "proved" anything, Lyndon. The "ronymi" bit is obviously written over completely faded print, and could easily have said Mittenwald. The rest, apart from the date is purely speculative from these images.

In any case it's a German early 19th century battered fiddle.

[vathek]

Wonder how it ended up with a glasser bow.

[bean_fidhleir]

It's not an M, it's an H. That's just dirt making it look an M. It's definitely been doctored, but it does look like it could be old/original. I could possibly accept Antonius for the first word, but couldn't get "Amati" out of that middle one if you paid me - it's too long.

[Will L]

I didn't intend anything other than that the word "Heironymi" DOES exist in the literature. The label I listed shows that. But if this was a copy of that label, the "Heironymi" would not be in that location. And I didn't mean to suggest THIS label states "Antonio Amati"; in fact the only word I can see at all is the one discussed. And it looks pretty obvious that most of the letters, if not all, are hand written. So with the "M" seeming to show through, the idea of an erased "Mittenwald" seems plausible. (I have edited this)

[puckfandan]

This violin is back: http://www.ebay.com/itm/395-YEARS-OLD-1617-MITROHYMI-VIOLIN-/221152049003?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item337db0776b

[jacobsaunders]

looks saxon, early 19th C. to me

[bean_fidhleir]

And I didn't mean to suggest THIS label states "Antonio Amati"; in fact the only word I can see at all is the one discussed.

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood.

And it looks pretty obvious that most of the letters, if not all, are hand written. So with the "M" seeming to show through, the idea of an erased "Mittenwald" seems plausible. (I have edited this)

I don't think I would call it " hand written" . "Hand enhanced" or "hand written-over", okay. But the enhancement looks too regular in spacing to be anything but tracing ink-over-ink, especially considering how badly the letters themselves are formed.

Plus, if the original had been "erased" it would have to have been done with a knife because ink doesn't just sit on the top the way pencil marks largely do. It's either liquid (writing ink) and stains the substrate fibers or semi-liquid (printer's ink) and gets pushed into the interstices where it polymerises and locks in. But if they had used a knife, it would have stripped away the surface grunge, too, which as we can see it didn't.

And the "M" really truly isn't an "M". Look at the alleged center downstrokes and compare the color to the ink and to the surrounding grunge. It matches the latter, not the former. And an M wouldn't have the center strokes off-center, and there'd be two of them meeting in a V, not one skewed off to the side. The only faces where the central V doesn't go all the way to the bottom are modern monospace fonts where they don't have room. Which this wasn't, as we see from the fact that the lower-case chars are of different widths.