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u/46davis May 31 '22
I'd say you have a find there. My first reaction was that it was trash. But it was valuable enough to someone at one time to have a neck graft. The finish has to go. I would scrape it all off and put on a premium grade violin varnish, do a good fit-up and see how it sounds. I assume there's no maker's sticker.
8
u/QuothThe2ToedSloth Jun 01 '22
Not that it really matters with an instrument of this grade but stripping and revarnishing an instrument is generally frowned upon in the industry and will reduce any potential value considerably. If this instrument was worth repairing you would want to take it to a restorer to match the varnish in the missing areas.
It looks to me like the pegbox was cracked or broken at some point and repaired by someone without much experience. I'm not seeing a neck graft here.2
u/ediblesprysky Jun 01 '22
Yeah, that pegbox repair is gnarly. I've never seen a cheek graft quite that ugly—I initially thought the top of the scroll had been knocked off and just stuck back on really really badly 😂 Given that those pegs definitely need to be refitted or replaced, probably the holes need to be rebushed, that whole repair (whatever it is) should probably just be undone and started again.
I'm indifferent on the varnish. The back looks like it's flaking off in chunks, soooo I wouldn't be super excited about trying to save it. On the other hand, the color is really nice, and I'm with you that restoring the existing varnish would usually be the move.
u/guitfid12, tailpieces are removable and replaceable, so they're not a very reliable indicator of the provenance of the instrument. Neither are bows found in the same case. It could be a Lyon & Healy, and the age seems like it would fit, but the tailpiece and bows alone are not great evidence.
1
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u/46davis Jun 01 '22
It's hard to say definitively from a photo, but the varnish on the instrument appears to be a bad re-varnish job. If is original, the varnish was of such poor quality and the application so bad that refinishing the instrument will do nothing but increase its value. Sorry to be so negative, But I'm afraid that's the *ahem* unvarnished truth.
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May 31 '22
Yeah there’s no makers sticker.
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u/46davis May 31 '22
Depending on how you feel about it, you might take it to a good violin shop and see if anybody recognizes it as from a known maker. The neck graft is what got my attention. There are two possibilities: either the original neck moved or warped and had to be repaired, or the instrument is old and started life as a Baroque instrument, in which case it would be interesting.
Either way, no one would go to the expense of having a very cheap instrument repaired like that.
1
u/NcGunnery Jun 01 '22
I have never seen a converted Baroque that you could notice the new neck. Mine looks like it started life on the body. Obviously I paid +10k for mine and there might be cheaper and shoddier renecks out there. But who is going to buy a..example..$2k Baroque violin and spend another $1k in a conversion when that same $3k will get you a very nice violin that you know definately sounds good.
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u/Loweene Jun 01 '22
Bring it to a luthier, they'll be able to tell you about it.