Interesting violin labelled Koueppers

[Jeny Mahon]

It will need to be opened for repairs anyway, I'd be curious to see the inside.  I would imagine we'd be able to tell more about what's going on with the maybe / maybe not added wood or whether it's a composite.  Hope you post more photos when you pop the top off!

[Blank face]

10 hours ago, Wood Butcher said:

Go on, you know you want to!!

One could start to roll eyes when tone is called a factor without giving a number (10%? 20%?), or about deliberately chosen price ranges within such a "factor" allegedly exists. Danube (or was it somebody else?) quoted another maker from hearsay telling that each violin could be sold by 10-15 K just for "good tone". Now everyone can come up and give his/her ideas like "a factor till 5 K - no, under 3 K - I guess it's more like 1 million" etc. What would be the use and how can this be proven?

And all this without even starting to consider who should decide about the quality of tone, and who's the final referee.

 

[reg]

Hello all, and thank you for the input

Give me few days and I'll post more pics

What exactly would you like to see - apart from inside when we get the top off?

[Violadamore]

6 hours ago, Blank face said:

One could start to roll eyes when tone is called a factor without giving a number (10%? 20%?), or about deliberately chosen price ranges within such a "factor" allegedly exists. Danube (or was it somebody else?) quoted another maker from hearsay telling that each violin could be sold by 10-15 K just for "good tone". Now everyone can come up and give his/her ideas like "a factor till 5 K - no, under 3 K - I guess it's more like 1 million" etc. What would be the use and how can this be proven?

And all this without even starting to consider who should decide about the quality of tone, and who's the final referee.

 

Whatever.    

I said something which is common wisdom on MN, should be easily interpreted for price range, factor, and provenance by those who have sold a few cheap fiddles, is in no way linked to the trolling incident you keep referring to, and the final referee is always the buyer.  Let's move on. 

 

5 hours ago, reg said:

Hello all, and thank you for the input

Give me few days and I'll post more pics

What exactly would you like to see - apart from inside when we get the top off?

Some decent macros (capable of being zoomed a lot) of the belly and back purfling in context with the grain on each side, IMHO, would be helpful. 

[jacobsaunders]

6 hours ago, reg said:

 

What exactly would you like to see - apart from inside when we get the top off?

More helpful would be photos of weather it has been half-edged (doubled for Americans), if remnants of a through neck platform are visible, and of course the corner blocks & linings

[Dave Slight]

20 hours ago, jacobsaunders said:

More helpful would be photos of weather it has been half-edged (doubled for Americans)

If there has been wood added around the edges, plus some half edging, does this mean the violin has been double doubled? 

[Blank face]

On 11/17/2022 at 5:29 PM, Violadamore said:

I said something which is common wisdom on MN, should be easily interpreted for price range, factor, and provenance by those who have sold a few cheap fiddles

Please define "cheap fiddles".

[reg]

HELLO ALL

Just to re-animate this thread - sorry for the delay but Ii have been laid aside by the dreaded lurgy! Just back in the shop this week

Here are pics of the inside where the lining in some instances tuck in behind the corner block - whilst others are cut flush; very strange?

Glad of any comments

[jacobsaunders]

Whoever was into you fiddle before you, seems to have used buckets of glue, and there are so many splinters and bits of belly left on the ribs, that one can scarcely observe the corner blocks. However one can see enough of them to wonder if it weren’t from France (not my area of expertise)

PS: hope you're feeling better

[Delabo]

Looking at the corners, French makes sense, and there is a town in North West france called "La Haye".

 Maybe the name "Koeuppers" is being confused with "Cuypers"?

*edit: I just found this entry in a book called "Old Violins" .... "KOEUPPERs, Jean. The Hague,1755-80. Well-made fiddles ;ugly yellow varnish.

[Blank face]

What I can see at the photo are pinched rib corner joints, not mitred joints as it would be expected with the French method "built around preinstalled blocks". This seems to be a "usual" bob with later installed blocks.

[Blank face]

OTOH the belly seems to be made from one piece without middle seam, what makes a Saxon/Bohemian origin more unlikely.

There's also no added wood visible inside the belly.

[uguntde]

On 11/14/2022 at 11:54 PM, jacobsaunders said:

You can’t see it so well on Shelbow’s pictures, but if you open reg’s word document, you will see what appears to be a joint, all the way around a couple of mm inside the purfling, which I could only explain as somebody having enlarged the fiddle

Possible. Reminds me of a visit to Schleske a few years ago. He put a ring of maple wood around the top instead of purfling. Not sure he still does this, but it looked similar. His weren't enlarged though.

[Ron1]

My guess is that the scribed line inside the purfling is simply decorative and was original, having been scribed using the purfling channel as a guide before the purfling strips were added.