New purchase, German, French or new Chinese????

[Strad O Various Jr.]

Had a professional player/teacher friend from the local symphony come and trial the violin, it sounded decent when she played still she thought $1500 would be pushing it and it was worth closer to $1000, so big waste of money on my part as I have about 20 violins roughly in that price range and hardly need another.

[Cincitaipei]

Thank you for posting your experience--we all learn from the shared stories. Hopefully it won't cost you too much. Did it come in with a case and bow? I'd imagine those also give some hints.

Just a question--on something like this is there a middle point between doing a full set-up and buying as is? Could you have put $35 strings on in ten minutes and had an idea of the sound? Also, when you go to sell something like this, how do you do it? Do you just say, 'I think this is a 30 year old Eastern European violin with a fake label?'

[Strad O Various Jr.]

6 hours ago, Cincitaipei said:

Thank you for posting your experience--we all learn from the shared stories. Hopefully it won't cost you too much. Did it come in with a case and bow? I'd imagine those also give some hints.

Just a question--on something like this is there a middle point between doing a full set-up and buying as is? Could you have put $35 strings on in ten minutes and had an idea of the sound? Also, when you go to sell something like this, how do you do it? Do you just say, 'I think this is a 30 year old Eastern European violin with a fake label?'

It came with a decent case but no bow.

The violin didn't even have a soundpost, there was no way to test the sound, Its rare that a violin for sale comes in the shop in good enough set up that one can make any judgement about the tone without doing a full set up. You run the risk of thinking the violin is no good just because the set up is so bad, so I try to withhold judgment of tone until the violin is fully restored, and judge purchases more on quality of condition, construction and region of manufacture.

Even on a cheaper violin I always try to do the best set up to get the best possible sound the violin is capable of, to the best of my ability

And yes of course I will tell customers that it is a newer probably Eastern European violin with a totally fake label, no point in lying to my customers, that's bad for business

[uguntde]

I have seen many Chinese violins looking like this. These guys do this kind of violins: https://theviolinproject.de

I would say Chinese production, varnished in Germany. Well-made instruments, but uninspiring.

[Bill Merkel]

On 11/5/2022 at 10:06 PM, Michael Richwine said:

 that step at the  nut turns out to be typically Bulgarian. 

Is that a reliable rule?  I have this that I always assumed was Chinese.

 

[Shelbow]

5 minutes ago, Bill Merkel said:

Is that a reliable rule?  I have this that I always assumed was Chinese.

 

I think this is actually done in a few places now.

A friend of mine who studied in Cremona said that this was also starting to be taught there (in the state school).

You can see an example here https://miocannone.com/cremona-violin-by-andrea-cabrini-cremona-2022/ and there are many other examples about.

[DarylG]

1 hour ago, Bill Merkel said:

Is that a reliable rule?  I have this that I always assumed was Chinese.

It's very common amongst modern violins from all regions.

[David Burgess]

3 hours ago, Bill Merkel said:

Is that a reliable rule?  I have this that I always assumed was Chinese.

Daryl is right. The step is quite common now from makers all over the world, as well as from upper-echelon restorers when doing neck grafts.

The main reasons?

1. At some point in the life of a violin, the fingerboard gluing surface of the neck will probably need to be resurfaced, and it's nice to be able to do this with a plane without shaving off the top of the pegbox, like as happened on so many valuable old violins, wimpifying the original side view of the the scroll.
2. A little extra material allows planing one end or the other to make minor adjustment in fingerboard projection, which always changes over time.

I don't see any advantage in failing to anticipate what will typically happen to a violin over its lifetime. And the step isn't really anything new. The Weisshaar shop was already doing this when I started working there in 1971, and I will presume that this wasn't some innovation of Hans, but was standard practice much earlier in the Hermann and Wurlitzer shops.

[jacobsaunders]

15 minutes ago, David Burgess said:

I will presume that this wasn't some innovation of Hans, but was standard practice much earlier in the Hermann and Wurlitzer shops.

Or  he learnt to do that in the Geigenbauschule in Mittenwald

[David Burgess]

2 hours ago, jacobsaunders said:

Or  he learnt to do that in the Geigenbauschule in Mittenwald

If you know someone else who graduated from the Geigenbauschule in Mittenwald around 1932, we can ask them.

[______]

依我拙見，那把小提琴是中國製造的。 請注意，我不是教授那樣的專家。 桑德斯或福爾摩斯先生或面無表情。

[Michael Richwine]

This is really interesting. I had heretofore only noticed it on Bulgarian workshop violins, plus one violin that I have that came from a dealer/ maker in Cremona. I am going to start a thread on the Italian violin, because I don't quite know what to make of it, nor how to present it when I go to sell it. The step makes a lot of sense, because I run into a lot of old violins that have problems with their necks that a little extra room would make it easier to deal with.

[jacobsaunders]

13 minutes ago, David Burgess said:

If you know someone else who graduated from the Geigenbauschule in Mittenwald around 1932, we can ask them.

In Vienna I actually lived next door to Michael Nowy, who constantly proudly showed me photographs of his sitting next to his classmate Weißhaar in the Mittenwald school. Unfortunately, you would need a medium to ask him though

[Blank face]

Here's one Mittenwald dated 1930 featuring this step, though it's not very pronounced. Sometimes it can be more easily spotted at 19th century violins from there, so it's a tradition in Mittenwald since at least 150 years or longer.

[GeorgeH]

It is very common in Mirecourt violins, too.

[zhiyi_zhang617]

So is in my Czech/Bohemian too.

[Wood Butcher]

This is such a common feature, the idea that it's an identifier for contemporary Bulgarian instruments only, is a complete red herring.
While it can be very exaggerated on some modern violins, this principle has been around for well over a century, and probably much longer than this.