skiingfiddler

This is a thread for listing names, without any foregone conclusions about what such a list might reveal.  The list, here, is those makers who might claim different nationalities based on different parts of their lives.  If someone sees some overwhelming generalization, here, that would be interesting.  I include a "Verdict on nationality as maker" without any justification for that verdict, maybe just to provoke discussion.

 

Here's a start at the list of makers whose nationality is international, or perhaps not:

 

Tschu Ho Lee: Grew up in South Korea.  Trained in violin making in Germany.  Came into prominence as a maker and a teacher in the United States. Verdict on nationality as maker: American.

 

Bela Szepessy: Grew up in Hungary. Trained in violin making and made violins in Hungary and Vienna.  Made violins for many decades in London.  Verdict on nationality as maker: Hungarian. That designation may be just my partiality for giving the small country of Hungary and Hungarians as much credit as possible.

 

Giuseppe Fiorini: Grew up in Italy. Trained in violin making and made early violins in Italy.  Subsequently, established shops and made violins in Munich and Zurich.  Subsequent making also in Italy: Verdict: Italian, based on never straying too far geographically from Italy.

 

Roger Hargrave: Grew up in England.  Trained in violin making in England.  Established own shop in Germany. Verdict: English.

 

Matteo Goffriller: Probably born in Tyrol, Austria (per Henley).  Prominent maker in classic Italy.  Verdict: Italian, as the "founder" of the Venetian school.

 

George Gemunder Sr: Born and raised in Germany.  Trained in France.  Became prominent maker in the United States. Verdict: American.

The violin trade has an inherent problem with attributions (ie, certifying what a fiddle is), a conflict of interest problem:  The very same people who sell instruments, dealers, can decide what the instrument is, and the dealer is free to make that attribution completely in house, without consulting anybody else, if they so choose.   The price of the instrument will, in large part, be determined by what the instrument is attributed to be, and therein lies the conflict of interest: The dealer's attribution will affect the price at which the dealer can reasonably sell the instrument.

 

No doubt, some dealers scrupulously avoid thinking about the pricing consequences when they make their attributions.  However, at least one dealer, Machold, is accused of misrepresenting instruments for his financial gain.

 

Given the norm in the violin trade of dealers both assigning attribution and also selling the instrument, what could be done to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest?

 

The obvious answer is to separate assigning attributions to instruments from selling instruments. 

 

Here are some proposals to do that:

 

1. Establish expertise in violin attribution outside the violin trade in institutions, such as in universities, in which selling a product plays no role.

 

2. Have violin trade associations set up standards whereby a single dealer cannot unilaterally make attributions; that is, two or more competing dealers have to agree on the attribution.

 

3. Within the violin trade, have independent appaisers who do no selling, but are qualified to make attributions and make judgments about condition and pricing.

 

Since possibilites 1 and 2 have been discussed extensively in other threads (although more discussion is welcome, here, if productive), I'm especially interested in possibility 3, the independent appraiser, and I would ask the following about the notion of the independent appraiser:

 

1.  Are there appraisers, now, in the trade, who do not sell any instruments, and are thus independent from the influences of selling?

 

2. If some selling of instruments is a necessary part of survival for anybody who is doing appraising, how is the conflict of interest problem avoided?  Could it be avoided by selling only those instruments for which attribution is unquestioned, for example, instruments with a long list of very reliable certifications or contemporary instruments, for which certification is easy; the maker is still alive?

 

Finally, as a general question: How have other trades (for example, in art objects such as paintings or sculptures) dealt with the separation of attributing from selling?

This thread is an outgrowth of an off topic subject from another thread.

 

My question concerns the differences between the ease of controlling the right and left side symmetry of a back plate when no built in center line is present, as there is in a two piece back.

 

Some posts from that other thread follow:

The question is, How do you deal with an instrument which you could acquire, but is obviously stolen? What's the right thing to do if what you want is to get the fiddle back to the proper owner?

What do you do as a shop owner, or maybe as a private buyer, say, from classified ads, if you're presented with an instrument which is obviously stolen? Do you go ahead and buy it, in order to keep it from disappearing, and with the intent of turning it in? Your noble efforts may mean losing whatever you pay for it, since the thief may have spent your payment before he's caught. Or do you refuse the instrument, and by the time the police respond to your report, the trail is cold and the instrument gone?

Here's a link to a short video (wish it were longer) of Gregg Alf working on a violin and playing, too:

http://www.melaniema...aker-gregg-alf/