http://www.carmenpiculeata.com/violin-wood/
Click Here For A Violin Master Pro Product Review
You have either inherited or found a violin at a flea market that has the phrase stamped inside "Antonius Stradivarius Faciebat Anno 17? Your head spins with fantasies that you have found a violin made by the master. In your dream you'll sell it and get money to pay mortgages, send kids to school and retire to a sunny location. So let me first tell you what you have not found. You have not found a violin made by the master. I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but this statement is reality. So it next question is, what have you found and it has value? What you found is called a "Strade Copy".
Most of these were conducted in Europe of the century. This little stamp was put in millions of these violins. The date can be very specific or it may just have 16 or 17 with a blank, which may or may not filled in by hand. The bottom line is that the date inside is meaningless. The name inside can be Antonius Stradivarius or Antonio or one of the Amati family or Guarnerius family or even Maggini. The name indicates the template for the dimensions of violins. A violin made with the dimensions used by Stradivarius sounds different than the one with the "Amati" dimensions and a Maggini or Guarnerius will also have its own distinctive sound. Germany, France and Italy was the location of the raw materials for violin making during the Industrial revolution.
That is, there were forests of fine grain to the top of the violin and groves of maple for back, neck, scroll and back of the violin. The grain was beautiful and the wood produced a very nice sound. There was a population willing to work in these factories, and there was great demand for violins. The technique of cottage industry factories, and then larger factories developed at the time, so nice violins were produced for about $ 1.00 per violin. So what is the value of one of these violins today?
The short version is that they are worth about $ 100 to $ 4,000, depending on many things. If they were handmade by one of the better producers of Strade copies, they may be worth quarter to half a million dollars. But like the original Strade, these are all accounted for and the chance you have a zero percent. So whether your copy is worth hundreds or thousands of dollars depends on many things, and this article is focuson identifying what you've just found.
My father in law was a collector of antique violins. He loved violins. It was his passion. So he accumulated a violin collection of over 60 violins and bows. The oldest was approximately 150 years old and the newest was probably made in the 1950s. When he passed away he left this collection to us. However, most of the violins were in need of a good cleaning and setup at the least and complete restoration at the most. So getting that accomplished became one of my first retirement projects. This cost a lot of money and I found I had to climb a rather steep learning curve as I knew almost nothing about a student violin. What I learned was that there is not a lot of help for folks wanting to know how the violin community works. So with articles and the online display of the “Collection” I am trying to publish what I have learned.
The Violin: Common Woods – Part 4 of 7
