Curious repair

[Clare@Iscaviolins]

Hello all you knowledgeable people out there....I have recently bought an old violin because I liked the back and thought I would hang it on the wall. It is German and what I think is usually described in this forum as "the usual". It came with the top off (not very kindly removed by the look of it) but this has revealed what seems to me a strange repair. The back of the fiddle has been completely lined with wide but thinnish strips of a very soft, pale wood; the sort of thing I imagine a woodworm would go into ecstasies over. The repairer has stuck his label in on top of this. Why would you have this sort of thing put into the violin in the first place? Surely it would kill the sound stone dead and be a source of buzzing forever? I cannot see any damage to the back which it might be supporting in any way. Any ideas?

 

[Kallie]

Hello all you knowledgeable people out there....I have recently bought an old violin because I liked the back and thought I would hang it on the wall. It is German and what I think is usually described in this forum as "the usual". It came with the top off (not very kindly removed by the look of it) but this has revealed what seems to me a strange repair. The back of the fiddle has been completely lined with wide but thinnish strips of a very soft, pale wood; the sort of thing I imagine a woodworm would go into ecstasies over. The repairer has stuck his label in on top of this. Why would you have this sort of thing put into the violin in the first place? Surely it would kill the sound stone dead and be a source of buzzing forever? I cannot see any damage to the back which it might be supporting in any way. Any ideas?

 

It would be helpful to post pictures so we can see exactly what you mean. Since you only have 5 posts, and you need 10 to post pictures, you could post them to an image hosting website like Photbucket and paste the link to the album here.

[duane88]

Over the years, I have noticed that the best repairers leave little to indicate that they were there, and the worst repairers prefer to label their repairs so that there is no question about who did it and what they did!

[Addie]

This type of veneering was popular in the U.S. around 1900. It's supposed to be an improvement for weak plates. Who was the repairer?

[Clare@Iscaviolins]

This type of veneering was popular in the U.S. around 1900. It's supposed to be an improvement for weak plates. Who was the repairer?

The repair label says "Repaird (sic) by A. Hardie, Annan. Oct 1881". It's not a pretty "repair" but it's on the inside so I guess how it looks is not too important. I think it will be a wall-hanger as it would require a lot of work to get it going and wouldn't be cost effective as it just another German 19th century violin in poor condition, but it has a super eccentric one piece back of narrow flame. When I have more approved posts I will take some pictures and post them. BTW, I agree that the crappier the repair the prouder repairers seem to be of it!