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Posted
2 minutes ago, Tigger said:

They seem to be replaced rings of wood. I'll see if I can get a better picture. 

No the grain lines are matching, as Fiddle Doug says these are clamp marks. Someone maybe went a bit heavy with the clamps whilst regluing something.

Posted

From what I can see this looks like an amateur made violin and I suspect wood was removed from the  outside of the arching with a Forstner bit or something similar. Where the arching swells out of the corner the mark of the bit didn't get completely removed.

Posted
2 minutes ago, nathan slobodkin said:

From what I can see this looks like an amateur made violin and I suspect wood was removed from the  outside of the arching with a Forstner bit or something similar. Where the arching swells out of the corner the mark of the bit didn't get completely removed.

Doesn't look amateur to me

Posted

Do all four corners have the same mark? I don't believe the forstner bit theory, as there is too much curvature in the arching there for it to have left a full circle mark.

Posted
3 minutes ago, jacobsaunders said:

Doesn't look amateur to me

OK. Looking more at the second photo the inelegant purfling looks awfully crude although if it is old obviously my suggestion is incorrect. I'd bow to your opinion as identifying Fiddles by a couple of corner photos is way past my talents.

What do you think they are? They seem too accurate to be clamp marks and look cut to me.

Posted
2 minutes ago, Bill Yacey said:

Do all four corners have the same mark? I don't believe the forstner bit theory, as there is too much curvature in the arching there for it to have left a full circle mark.

Yeah I was wondering that too. If so maybe decoration? A full set of pictures would be helpful.

Posted
22 minutes ago, nathan slobodkin said:

OK. Looking more at the second photo the inelegant purfling looks awfully crude although if it is old obviously my suggestion is incorrect. I'd bow to your opinion as identifying Fiddles by a couple of corner photos is way past my talents.

What do you think they are? They seem too accurate to be clamp marks and look cut to me.

I had wondered if the circles were drawn on with a compass, after all one can see the pin prick in the centre, perhaps a marking to apply some circular decoration afterwards. But I don’t know, and they are a mystery to me too

Posted

I would guess some original carved circular "button" applied decorations  have be removed.  Differences in the finish are evident within and without the circles.

Posted
3 hours ago, Ron1 said:

I would guess some original carved circular "button" applied decorations  have be removed.  Differences in the finish are evident within and without the circles.

If that was the case, why would they have scribed around the decorations?

Posted

The other thing that negates the forstner bit theory is that the centering brad point of a forstner bit would have left a much deeper hole before the outer spurs started cutting.

Posted (edited)

Thanks all for your comments. Its a tricky one!

Some more photos here. 

To my eyes with the instrument in my hand they look like circular fillets of wood inserted. Hopefully the new photos show why but I'll bow to your collective expertise. 
 

The instrument is a large 17" viola. Reduced in the middle but looks whole around the purfling so unless re-purfled entirely the edges you see are correct and original. There are only these two circles at the top corners, none at the lower  

Front dendros to 1670 viola is complete. 
 

For now I'll just leave these here as the original question was about these circles....

ADFA876E-33AA-4A63-A42F-2E21E9E190C3.jpeg

52ADC829-C36D-4A33-9E0D-DC2BA8989401.jpeg

B3664A21-1B68-4026-9E5E-64D3E7D06B4F.jpeg

Edited by Tigger
Posted
15 minutes ago, Wood Butcher said:

To answer your original question, I think it's safe to say that no, no one has seen this before.
If you were hoping it's a feature to identify the maker, it will not be.

Yes I can see that. 
 

I was asking more out of curiosity and research rather than thinking of a particular maker or attribution- such a unique thing to find on an instrument. 

Who knows what they are or why they are there!

I really appreciate all your comments  


 

Posted
45 minutes ago, Wood Butcher said:

To answer your original question, I think it's safe to say that no, no one has seen this before.
If you were hoping it's a feature to identify the maker, it will not be.

I've certainly seen that before on badly handled furniture, but not on violins. My first mental image when I saw the picture was some guy with a bottle of white glue and a light duty Pony brand f-clamp. The fixed side doesn't work so well, and I don't know for sure about the size of the swivel pad, but that's certainly the first thing I flashed on, just as the other posters immediately thought of C-clamps in Americanese.

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