a violin with a famous name

Pirate luthier adventures continued:

Jumping back to violin number 16),

which needed the fingerboard to be glued back on, and it took me a while to gather the courage for the whole hide glue business, but it worked quite well and hasn't fallen apart yet.

This violin, which I bought for £25, is branded Sebastian Klotz, but sadly not by the Mittenwald Luthier, but by Yamaha Malaysia, who appear to have trademarked his name, written as one word, as you see on the label:

The rather posh case (with a hygrometer - but maybe that's more common in Malaysia?) and the rosin are branded skv for Sebastian Klotz violins, I suppose. I hear the Klotz family are still building violins in Mittenwald, maybe they should send their lawyers.

Apart from the fingerboard and a bit of scraping on the bridge, there wasn't much to do on this one, but as I had the tailpin out, I wondered if I could take a photo through the hole, and that turned out quite nicely, so here's the view of the very solid looking skv soundpost.

First impressions: The violin sounds very much like the Stentor student models - good enough for folk but nothing special. I think it's just right for holiday practice so I've taken it to Dusseldorf where it will stay on top of my grandmother's old piano. As such it will stay in my collection so I'd better add the tag of my much neglected "all our instruments" series.

I've now exchanged the photos in my freegle ad for the one at the top of this entry, think people were getting bored with the ones I had for a year and a half, which showed violin 1) before and after restoration.

Previously in the pirate luthier series:

violin 1) is the one my late aunt had since the 1930s, which got me started. After restoring it in November 2022, I played it almost every day for 14 months, until number 5) showed up.

violin 2) is a Stentor student 1 (a very widely used brand of cheap fiddles available everywhere and still being produced). It has a fault that is probably not worth repairing, see the blog entry on number 3) below. After stripping it of some accessories and spares, I am now inclined to keep it in a semi-functional state to try out experimental repairs, i.e. use it as a wooden guinea pig of sorts.

violin 3) came from a folkie friend who moved away. I put the soundpost back in its place and it has now found a new home.

violin 4) is a modern Chinese one which I bought from one musical friend and sold to another, no work needed.

violin 5) (donated by a friendly freegler) is my new favourite and the one I currently play in folk sessions.

violin 6) is the half-sized Lark which was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 7) is a skylark from 1991 which I bought on gumtree for £ 10 and fitted with a new bridge. Good enough for folk I would say. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 8) is the "ladies violin", a 7/8 skylark. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 9) is the one which needed a new bridge and a tailgut and turned out to sound quite lovely on the E string. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 10) is the broken one with traces of multiple repair attempts. I'm still gathering courage to try and fix that one.

violin 11) is the 3/4 sold by JP Guivier & Co Ltd. in the 1950s but may actually be older than that. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 12) is a full-size Lark which a freegle user kindly donated and delivered after seeing my offer. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violins 13) through to 15) I bought locally through gumtree or facebook, nothing special to report.

violin 16) is the Sebastian Klotz branded one described above, sadly not made by the Mittenwald Luthier, but by Yamaha Malaysia, who appear to have trademarked his name.

violin 17) is the supersized violin with a very strong sound.

violin 18) is the slightly drunken but nice sounding violin from Poland.

violin 19) is a Stentor studend violin which only needed a little TLC, and within less than a week I had it brushed up and ready to move to our local school. The most intriguing problem it had was that somebody had put in the bridge the wrong way round, with the lower slope under the G string.