Old, open and heavily used violin ID

[PCello]

Dear all, 

as I today opened up the violin shown on the pictures below, I would like to give a more specific identification a try. 
What are your thoughts? Every opinion is welcome. Please let me know if you need any more pictures.
Many thanks!
 

[jacobsaunders]

The usual

[PCello]

You mean Dutzendarbeit/Schönbach/Markneukirchen? I thought it could czech/romanian, given the varnish and grounding...

[Gary M]

It is a shame that Jacob found this so quickly since you asked for lots of comments. His "The Usual" keyboard macro tends to shut down identification discussions.

I, however, have no problem sticking my neck out. I too think it's most likely Czech. I've seen that scroll before on other Czech and Czech/American instruments down to the details of the right and left sides not being the same and the distinctive gap between the scroll and the pegbox.

 

[PCello]

Thank you @Gary M!  What do you mean by Czech/American instruments? Have there been czech migrants to the US or something like this? 
I thought the bottom of the back of the scroll didn't look so much like I knew the Saxon violins...

[jacobsaunders]

7 minutes ago, Gary M said:

It is a shame that Jacob found this so quickly since you asked for lots of comments. His "The Usual" keyboard macro tends to shut down identification discussions.

I, however, have no problem sticking my neck out. I too think it's most likely Czech. I've seen that scroll before on other Czech and Czech/American instruments down to the details of the right and left sides not being the same and the distinctive gap between the scroll and the pegbox.

 

I’m afraid that it’s a textbook example of “a Usual” (Mark/Schön Dutzendarbeit) which most lightly precedes the existence of Czechoslovakia.

Sticking your neck out is your prerogative of course

[Blank face]

Czech would mean Luby (former Schönbach) made, and they were nearly indistinguishable from Markneukirchen at the prewar period.

4 minutes ago, PCello said:

Thank you @Gary M!  What do you mean by Czech/American instruments? Have there been czech migrants to the US or something like this? 
I thought the bottom of the back of the scroll didn't look so much like I knew the Saxon violins...

 

[Gary M]

Yes, several well documented ones. Just like any other professions instrument makers trained in Germany, Italy and others European countries/regions migrated to the US and set up shop here or went to work for the existing firms already here. 

[Strad O Various Jr.]

35 minutes ago, Gary M said:

Yes, several well documented ones. Just like any other professions instrument makers trained in Germany, Italy and others European countries/regions migrated to the US and set up shop here or went to work for the existing firms already here. 

You mean they were importers of the "usual"

[Gary M]

18 minutes ago, Blank face said:

Czech would mean Luby (former Schönbach) made, and they were nearly indistinguishable from Markneukirchen at the prewar period.

The operative word is "indistinguishable."

Just goes to my new "Quantum Theory of Violins." Just like subatomic particles we can only ascribe a probability of manufacturing location to any particular instrument unless we have documents of provenance somewhat equivalent to the physical measurement of the particle in the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. The probability is assigned by the design, construction methods, etc. until something specific tells us otherwise but in the absence of that specific information the violin equivalent of the wave form never collapses, and we can't really say anything about the instrument's actual manufacturing location beyond that subjective probability. There must also be a "Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of Violins" but I'm not quite there yet. 

[Brad Dorsey]

2 hours ago, jacobsaunders said:

The usual.

In “the usual” construction method, I thought that the ribs were left long at the corners, then glued and clamped together, then filed to their finished lengths, and then the corner blocks were glued in.

If this is the case, then am I puzzled, because I thought that this method put the rib corner joints in the middle.  But in the first corner joint picture I see the joint towards the lower bout, and in the second picture I see the joint towards the C bout.  Neither is centered.  Am I missing something?  Could you expound on this?

[GeorgeH]

4 minutes ago, Brad Dorsey said:

If this is the case, then am I puzzled, because I thought that this method would put the rib corner joints in the middle.  But in the first corner joint picture I see the joint towards the lower bout, and in the second picture I see the joint towards the C bout.  Neither is centered.  Am I missing something?  Could you expound on this?

I noticed the same thing, but I think it is because one side of each corner was filed back. 

[Blank face]

9 minutes ago, Gary M said:

The operative word is "indistinguishable."

Just goes to my new "Quantum Theory of Violins." Just like subatomic particles we can only ascribe a probability of manufacturing location to any particular instrument unless we have documents of provenance somewhat equivalent to the physical measurement of the particle in the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. The probability is assigned by the design, construction methods, etc. until something specific tells us otherwise but in the absence of that specific information the violin equivalent of the wave form never collapses, and we can't really say anything about the instrument's actual manufacturing location beyond that subjective probability. There must also be a "Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of Violins" but I'm not quite there yet. 

Of course there is the certainty that both Markneukirchen/Schönbach were  a collaborative unit of violin mass production with easily recognizable features, so your quantum theory would be ignoring factuality, if it’s a serious effort anyway and not a sort of nonsense.

 

4 minutes ago, Brad Dorsey said:

In “the usual” construction method, I thought that the ribs are left long at the corners, then glued and clamped together, then filed to their finished lengths, and then the corner blocks are glued in?

If this is the case, then am I puzzled, because I thought that this method would put the rib corner joints in the middle.  But in the first corner joint picture I see the joint towards the lower bout, and in the second picture I see the joint towards the C bout.  Neither is centered.  Am I missing something?  Could you expound on this?

The joints are in the middle, just the rib thickness is thinned assymetrically.

A mitre would be at the inside of the joints, what’s obviously not the case here.

[Brad Dorsey]

1 hour ago, Blank face said:

...the rib thickness is thinned assymetrically...

Yes, that explains it.

[Gary M]

3 hours ago, Blank face said:

Of course there is the certainty that both Markneukirchen/Schönbach were  a collaborative unit of violin mass production with easily recognizable features, so your quantum theory would be ignoring factuality, if it’s a serious effort anyway and not a sort of nonsense.

True Dutzendarbeit/Schönbach/Markneukirchen was a center for violin production. True, many features of these violins are recognizable. Factuality. In my mind those features create values in the probability function that is higher for those geographic areas.  BUT... That's all it is, a probability function. Unless you have primary source documentation for an individual instrument the whole thing falls apart around the edges and American made instruments are a good example of where the edges are. European trained craftsmen came here and merged into a small menage of local makers. They also imported lots of unfinished violins in various states of construction creating various frankenviolins that it is easy to push the "The Usual" keyboard macro on but that ain't the whole story.

A while ago I did some personal research looking at violins that were credited to Czech and Czech/American makers in an effort to understand my primary personal instrument. I noticed what I think are some scroll features that looked common to me across many of those instruments and not like other Usuals I own and have seen. I may be totally wrong, or not. It is an observation by a non-professional encouraged by the OP.

As to whether or not the "Quantum Theory of Violins" is nonsense or not, of course it is nonsense. I suppose in theory you could write a probability function like that, but it would be a daunting task. Nonsense however stimulates thinking outside the box and although it is nonsense it has given me an insight to the problem I had not considered before so maybe not nonsense after all.

[GeorgeH]

8 hours ago, Gary M said:

it is easy to push the "The Usual" keyboard macro on but that ain't the whole story.

Every potential event has a probability of occurrence that theoretically can be assigned to the likely hood of it occurring. These probabilities can be infinitely small or infinitely large.

When it comes to antique violin attribution, it is based on educated guesses using available information; some guesses are much more educated than others, but every guess has some probability, large or small, of being wrong.

[Blank face]

10 hours ago, Gary M said:

European trained craftsmen came here and merged into a small menage of local makers. They also imported lots of unfinished violins in various states of construction creating various frankenviolins that it is easy to push the "The Usual" keyboard macro on but that ain't the whole story.

It was very common in Europe, too, especially in the German/Austro-Hungarian region (which included the later Checoslowakia as well as parts of Poland and other post WW1 countries) to purchase and finish prefabricated Mnk/Schb violins or parts, so that is by no means a speciality of American makers resp. immigrants from Europe to there. With a bit of training it is still possible to decide which parts are idiosyncratic and which originating from the trade. There are terms like Großstadtgeigen to describe such instruments.

The attribution of violins is IMO much more blurred by commercial interests or wishful thinking/romantical delusions than any Heisenberg Uncertainity.

[Spongebob]

15 hours ago, Gary M said:

The operative word is "indistinguishable."

Just goes to my new "Quantum Theory of Violins." Just like subatomic particles we can only ascribe a probability of manufacturing location to any particular instrument unless we have documents of provenance somewhat equivalent to the physical measurement of the particle in the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. The probability is assigned by the design, construction methods, etc. until something specific tells us otherwise but in the absence of that specific information the violin equivalent of the wave form never collapses, and we can't really say anything about the instrument's actual manufacturing location beyond that subjective probability. There must also be a "Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of Violins" but I'm not quite there yet. 

Does 'usual' also apply to MN/SCH - Dutzen... BOB version? Because if so, it can introduce two terms... 'very usual' for the BOB version and... 'usual' for violin like OP

[Violadamore]

19 hours ago, Gary M said:

The operative word is "indistinguishable."

Just goes to my new "Quantum Theory of Violins.".............

Neither is the existence of the "V-boson" and its associated "violin neutrino" proved.  We need bigger, more powerful colliders.  [Goes back to writing a grant application to investigate a method of causing virtual violins to appear out of the quantum vacuum, like they often seem to on MN.] 

[Gary M]

5 hours ago, Spongebob said:

Does 'usual' also apply to MN/SCH - Dutzen... BOB version? Because if so, it can introduce two terms... 'very usual' for the BOB version and... 'usual' for violin like OP

Exactly. Some features bump the probability up to near 1.0.

 

1 hour ago, Violadamore said:

Neither is the existence of the "V-boson" and its associated "violin neutrino" proved.  We need bigger, more powerful colliders.  [Goes back to writing a grant application to investigate a method of causing virtual violins to appear out of the quantum vacuum, like they often seem to on MN.] 

Great idea @Violadamore.  I think I'll open a gofundme page to start building that collider right away.  It should only take a few billion $/Euros/Pounds. Easy as pie to raise that kind of money. We'll have virtual Strads popping out of that quantum vacuum in no time! 

[jacobsaunders]

I’m afraid that the op violin is a Mark/Schön Dutzendarbeit, aka “The usual” without a shadow of doubt, and it is only really a matter of calling a spade a spade. Sorry for being a Killjoy

[Gary M]

1 hour ago, jacobsaunders said:

I’m afraid that the op violin is a Mark/Schön Dutzendarbeit, aka “The usual” without a shadow of doubt, and it is only really a matter of calling a spade a spade. Sorry for being a Killjoy

Nothing Kiljoy about it for my part. It is what it is. You gave the OP an expert analysis. I'll go back and review my scroll notes when I head back north and refine my eye for scroll-work. I had a new insight. Can't speak for the OP but as far as I am concerned, All good.

[Jonathan B]

Love the quantum idea of violins being in two states at once.

But seriously, from my inexpert reading the vast majority of German violins in the early twentieth century were made in the broad Markneukirchen area (including Luby/Schönbach across the border) with the relatively few made in Mittenwald having different characteristics. But in practice there are violins claiming Berlin or other German origins and there is a question of whether those were Markneukirchen violins relabelled by the retail shop, or Markneukirchen white boxes finished off there, or violins assembled there from Marneukirchen parts, or even possibly violins wholly made there by makers who learned their trade in Markneukirchen.

I suspect all of those would fall under Jacob’s “usual” category.

The same seems to be true for France at that time, where many violins claiming an origin in Paris (and probably other cities) apparently have a link to the Mirecourt factory workshops.

(And Italy of course has the converse problem, where violins made almost anywhere can get attributed to Cremona).

[Violadamore]

1 hour ago, Jonathan B said:

Love the quantum idea of violins being in two states at once.

Shoot, that's nuthin'.  I've seen single violins on eBay being simultaneously offered from two different continents. 

Didn't have a clue about their momentums, though. 

I'm planning to post a publication here, on quantum violinistics, around April 1st..  Any member interested in co-authoring is invited to PM me.  We may be able to prove that an infinite number of puns can occupy the same energy level.