"Sebastian Klotz 1772"

[gryffynda]

Looking for this violin which was listed in the Lyon & Healy 1924

catalog.  I realize it's a fake, but am still interested in perhaps

purchasing it (obviously not for $500 - hah! won't go to 5 figures,

though)  Let me know ifyou know who might have it!  Thanks.

 

"SEBASTIAN KLOTZ, MITTENWALD, 1772. Number 6930. A

well developed model. Back, one piece birds-eye maple; top, spruce of the

choicest selection for tone. The varnish is of a brownish color. The

instrument is in a fine state of preservation and possesses a large tone

of beautiful quality. Price: $500"

[Addie]

I'll give you a Sebastian Klotz label, and you can paste it into a violin you like playing.

Or, you can post images of this violin, so knowledgeable people can evaluate it, sans sales rhetoric.  

[gryffynda]

I have no images of it, unfortunately.  It has a certain historic/sentimental value to me, unrelated specifically to the maker.  I have two nice violins to play, fortunately.

[Addie]

Oh, OK. At $500 1924 dollars, it might well have been a Klotz School violin of circa 1770.  

[gryffynda]

Thanks.  Seems likely.  I wish there was a way to trace Lyon & Healy's requisitioning and importation of "old, rare" violins back before they were exclusively harp dealers.

 

Wow - $500.00 in 1924 had the same buying power as $6,977.80 in 2017.

[Conor Russell]

That would  surely  have been  a very  expensive  Klotz  in 1924!

Apart altogether from  currency  devaluation there's  violin inflation to consider. 

 

[jacobsaunders]

If anyone rings me up, and says that they are coming around to show me a “Sebastian Klotz” that they have had in the family since 1924, I put my 19^th C. Atlas on the counter ready for them, opened at the “Kingdom of Bohemia" page.

[deans]

Yes 99.9% of family violins are "the usual". But the instrument in the L&H catalogue was probably something close to the description. Todays experts may not be bold enough to call it a "Sebastian", but I'll bet it was a nice old M-walder. Hard to find a nice clean one for under 5 figures retail these days, so you may be out of luck anyway.

[Bill Merkel]

16 hours ago, Addie said:

Or, you can post images of this violin, so knowledgeable people can evaluate it, sans sales rhetoric.  

In the catalog it was probably a stock image of about rubber stamp quality.  Seems like a crazy hopeless quest.

But I remember when I was a little kid in the '60s there were these flyers or catalogs that were distributed to music stores, offering violins that are very expensive and desirable today, I mean that was the means of distribution if you weren't in the big city, and I suspect they were as genuine as current "genuine" offerings, or moreso.  Not incredibly expensive but more than anyone was going to gift to me...

 

[gryffynda]

The catalog actually has some pretty good plates of the more expensive instruments they were selling (see page 18, for instance).  But no pictures of the lower cost instruments. 

http://www.lyonhealy.com/pdfs/1924 Rare Old Violins.pdf

 

[Guido]

9 hours ago, gryffynda said:

The catalog actually has some pretty good plates of the more expensive instruments they were selling (see page 18, for instance).  But no pictures of the lower cost instruments. 

http://www.lyonhealy.com/pdfs/1924 Rare Old Violins.pdf

 

Thanks for the link to the file. That's really quite interesting.

Looks like any violin out of that cataloque might do just fine for me :-)

[uguntde]

This is very interesting indeed. $500 for a Kloz, and $1250 for a JB Vuillaume, Nicolo Amati $8500, other Amati family members around $3500, together with Gagliano and Lupot. The ratios have shifted massively to the disadvantage of Kloz violins.

They also describe the tone of their instruments - today I only see this occasionally in Bongartz' catalogues. Other auction houses seem to avoid tonal assessments, except for some top instruments for which we get a sound snippet from Brompton's.  

 

[Will L]

On 4/17/2017 at 5:49 PM, gryffynda said:

On 4/17/2017 at 5:49 PM, gryffynda said:

 

I realize it's a fake, but am still interested in perhaps

purchasing it (obviously not for $500 - hah! won't go to 5 figures,

though)  Let me know ifyou know who might have it!  Thanks.

 

 

 

gryffynda,

I'm puzzled why you think it's a fake; also fascinated why this particular violin has caught your attention just from a description.

BTW, over the years I have been amazed at how some people respond to Maestronet, so there MAY be a little hope of finding it.  Good luck. 

[gryffynda]

It was my impression from something I'd read or heard that Lyon & Healy was selling a lot of "models of" as if they were authentic at that time.  I could be wrong.  But that's a heck of a lot of expensive instruments to actually have on hand.  Also, my mother's pseudo-Guad came with a Lyon & Healy "Certificate of Authenticity".  The Klotz violin in the description may be the violin she traded for the pseudo-Guad, and I would like to have it as she said she sometimes regretted having traded it in.

[Will L]

Thanks.  It was just idle curiosity on my part.