Not very subtle

[pjham]

Nice to see the French and Italians sharing the same marking pen.

 

See labels on Ebay items 271660178170  271566837694  271667674808

 

 

 

 

[luthier]

Looks like all 3 were signed by the same person as well. Maybe the maker moved around a lot and changed his name at every new location.

[mrfiddle]

But why, oh why, do people bid on them???

[Trenchworker]

Sometimes, perhaps to get something for nothing.

[Violadamore]

But why, oh why, do people bid on them???

 

Sometimes, perhaps to get something for nothing.

 

 

Here, in our little blessedly fiddle obsessed niche of the Internet, I feel that we have a tendency to forget how vast public ignorance is about violin matters.  Most bidders likely don't have a clue what the.expected market values for the real thing are, much less what to look for.  It's easy to laugh at this, but maybe we shouldn't. Out of a world population of roughly 6,000,000,000, there probably are 50,000 or so of us (1 in 120,000 overall) who know anything much about the business.  The membership numbers here, the Strad readership, and so on, give one some idea of how the demographic cow ate the cabbage.  A much larger number of people have sufficient interest in violins to try to buy one, but know little or nothing about the realities.  As I recall Jeffrey saying in a long screed on this subject some years ago, it's a matter of education.  IMHO, we need to persist in trying to spread information, and have patience with those who lack it. 

[luthier]

It is presently a buyer's market on ebay, and the winner of the viola tonight did very well in spite of the mislabeling. I think the market for violins is extremely saturated, compared to demand. What I cannot understand is the plight of the honestly represented violins of good quality, sometimes labeled, which don't have bogus Italian labels, selling for less than peanuts or not at all. The majority of the Italian labeled violins are antiqued new Chinese worth 300 max, or old German/Bohemian/Czech trade fiddles worth the same, more or less, and yet they sell for several times what they are worth, and go into the thousands in some cases.

 I sometimes think the buyers deserve what they get. On the other hand, I feel sorry for their lack of knowledge. If ebay buyers would take the time to get educated about what they are buying, a whole bunch of the scammers would be out of business. There are several with multiple ID's, and have been scamming for several years. There are even well written buyer's guides on ebay for all to see, but apparently have very little impact. It's sad to see the honest sellers not getting squat for their wares, and the scammers making extremely huge profits off crap.

[vathek]

I notice with this one it doesn't say anything like 'bearing an Italian label', but blatantly states that it is an Italian viola.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-1932-Italian-viola-labeled-Ermanno-16-5-034-/271660178170?ru=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fsch%2Fi.html%3F_sacat%3D0%26_udlo%3D%26_udhi%3D%26_ftrt%3D901%26_ftrv%3D1%26_sabdlo%3D%26_sabdhi%3D%26_samilow%3D%26_samihi%3D%26_sadis%3D15%26_stpos%3D%26_sop%3D12%26_dmd%3D1%26_ipg%3D100%26_nkw%3D271660178170%26_rdc%3D1&nma=true&si=vFgqVCOIiRgV1WOMsxTQI7mYdAA%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

[Mike_Danielson]

Nice to see the French and Italians sharing the same marking pen.

 

See labels on Ebay items 271660178170  271566837694  271667674808

 

Thanks for pointing out these instruments--I would never have found them on ebay--I enjoyed the pictures and the writeup.  The instruments are not going for a lot of money; so there is not much damage being done to the old pocketbook.

 

The seller has progressed quite a long ways in learning to fake an old instrument, and I admire that.  I don't know, maybe they are old, but I suspect they are new, and he has learned to fake age.  In that case, he is well ahead of me, and I would like to learn how he did it. 

 

Look at those labels--how to fake the age?  Look at the stains on the inside--how do you do that?  How do you put randon damage on the top and back and make it look real? 

 

I am light-hearted on this issue because I understand ebay.

 

Mike D