Talk of Fakes (or Antiqued newer Basses) came up......
 

While bringing in the New Year, talk of Hungarian Fakes came up so I am starting this Thread to continue the discussion.

Ken McKay brought up the dates of the Bisiach Family when I showed a bass with Jeff's first Chromatic C-Extension that he made for me which I loved but then sold the Bass.


Now that we are up to speed, let me fill you on on what I have learned in the following Post..

The Gypsy Fake/Antiquing Clan..
 

Awhile back there was a Bass on Ebay that caught me eye. It was advertised and an Ongaro Bass (18th century Italian) and was still a 3-string Bass. The Gear holes looked like they were drilled yesterday and with no other holes plugged up. That was the first smoking gun. The Varnish or rather 'finish' was dull and 'burnt' looking and the overall Bass just looked a bit, 'exaggerated' to me.

I email the seller and made him an offer. IT was listed for $25k so I offered $30k IF he came with the Bass and I could get it authenticated here and would pay him for the trip as well. In his reply he mentioned that shipping the Bass would be difficult and could result in damage but that I was welcome to come over there and try it out (another 'claimed' Ongaro is pictured in a Book published in Italy a few years ago and I also got to see that exact Bass in person briefly not long ago.)

In today's world $25k is an average price for a handmade Bass by a top Luthier. Some more, some less so his price was ok if it was good but way low if it was real as advertised.

Then in his Reply to which I questioned that 3-stringer he mentions to me, "Hi, and by the way, that Bisiach you got from Italy, it came from me!":eek:

Confirmation in the biggest way. The first day I got that Bisiach something smelled funny, for real. The inside was treated with scents, varnish smells, shavings, dirt, dust.. etc. I blew it out as best as possible with an air hose but almost made myself sick.

After restoration, I sold the Bisiach labeled Bass as most likely a Hungarian Bass recently made but from an unknown origin. The Scroll however may have been older. When Jeff opened her up he pointed out how the Bass was made and antiqued as well as in what order things were done.

Recently I brought in another 'known' antiqued Gypsy Bass but this one a HUGE 5-string. After seeing a few published Hungarian Basses I emailed one of the makers from his website and another who makes and restores Basses over there as well. These are two of the 'good guys', not the fakers.

I asked them about this practice over there after owning a few of them and seeing others as well as hearing about a few HIGH priced counterfeits as well. The Antiqued Basses they say often are made in Romania and then sent to Hungary where they are antiqued internally as well as externally. This includes acid washing the inside of the the Bass to make it look old. Some of the work is not done so well but every one I have played sounded fantastic. The people doing this are not easy to find but they do this practice with all string family instrument. Some of them can fool you without a thorough examination.

My Bisiach labeled Bass dated 1951 sounded comparable for its 'stated' age and origin to my authentic certified 1919 Martini. That is sound only. A first look by an experienced Luther of Basses can see exactly what steps were taken to make this Bass look old. How they make them sound old and sound so so good is a still mystery. Maybe they are just well made Basses for the most part and the 'shadow' over them is just the deceitful antiquing and labeling.

I think the labeling and misrepresentation of pedigree is deceitful, not the antiquing.

true..
 

Yes Eric, true but the labeled instruments are Antiqued to deceive.

I had a 5-string in my hands a few months ago that was a huge 4/4 sized Bass with an early 20th century Italian label. The price was too good to be true and it was. I looked over the Bass which by the way sounded and looked fantastic but came to my own conclusion that it was a fake or misplaced labeled Hungarian Bass.

Then I was offered another huge 4/4 5er but was told that the Bass was fairly new. It too was antiqued as well but unlabeled. On both Orchestra concerts I used it on I was asked "How old is that Bass?". It looked and sounded old or rather it did not sound new.

My Pollmann is antiqued somewhat as well as my Lott copy. These two Basses are labeled correctly and honestly. I agree that it's the labeling that is the deceit but they are antiqued as well. This does not stop people from putting labels in at the shop level afterwards. My Lott copy could easily be relabeled as a late 19th century English maker and no one would blink!

To make my point, please look at the 2 Scrolls pictured and try to date them from looks alone. Do not use my website to look up the dates. Try and give your first impression from looks alone. If you can, look at the webpages for each Bass and disregard the names and dates as if they are not there and tell me how old the Bass itself appears to be on its own.

http://www.kensmithbasses.com/double.../lott_mod9.jpghttp://www.kensmithbasses.com/double...2/scroll_R.jpg
http://www.kensmithbasses.com/double...mages/bis7.jpghttp://www.kensmithbasses.com/double...lombardi10.jpg

Have fun...

Here is something odd to me. Look at the contrast in work on the same bass. The corner work is first class showing a superb bee-sting, yet the f-fluting looks as if the maker didn't know how to sharpen a gouge or plane.

I have done a lot of faux antiquing myself (still working on making it convincing :() so I have developed an eye for a fake. Most antiquing done for artistic reasons does not involve wood destruction except maybe a few dings and dents. And corners might be worn in a realistic way, but that seems rare to me, at least in violins. And the lack of cracks is also a tell tale as Ken said.

Varnish wears in different ways but creates patterns that are very difficult to duplicate. Good varnish does not stick completely to the ground underneath and flakes off in large sections early on in its life. The sections that do stick, however, seem to stick forever. The sections where the varnish is gone should show old wood.

The wood underneath the varnish is the hardest to get to look old by artificial means. A general aged gold/yellow will do the trick but does not have the subtle dark honey tone of real aged wood.

Makers like the Kramers (Pohlman) have a "stylized" aging that the Germans are known for. It is very nice looking but easily recognizable.

example..
 

Forgive me for only having the Back 'bee sting' displayed. The Top and Back rarely match on any Bass as working Maple or Spruce is quite different. The Top usually looks much older than the Back on old Basses because it takes more of a beating.

Look here at the Top and Back pics of the Bass.
http://www.kensmithbasses.com/double.../bis_front.jpghttp://www.kensmithbasses.com/double...s/bis_back.jpg

There is some gouging in the C-bouts that looks like 'after' graduation work;
http://www.kensmithbasses.com/double...bis_fholes.jpg

On this Bass Ken, the maker was NOT the same person that antiqued the Bass. The Scroll work however matches the antiquing process. The Corner work was done by the maker. A different hand entirely. All the Corners on this Bass are 'stung', Top and Back. The extra gouging in and around the 'F' flutes were done as antiquing after the Bass was made. That was a 'red flag' as well to my eye.

This Bass however sounded great in the Orchestra and even did a few jazz gigs with it. It stood on its own and sounded at least as old as it was 'trying' to look. It was a good Bass, period!

Educate me. I'm ignorant. What exactly are ya'll seeing in the f-fluting?

defferences..
 

Ken McKay sees that the antique work looks different than the makers hand in the Purfling bee sting work. He is 100% correct. The Bass was antiqued 'after' it was made and done by a different person. The F-fluting was altered to show wear and distress.

Some "craftsman" took a concave scraper to the area around the f-holes and scraped the crap out of it to try and make it look handmade. But the texture is localized, which makes it obvious fakery.

Got it. Thank you.

This is an interesting and dangerous subject. I use the word dangerous because I believe now is the time that fraudulent basses are apt to enter the market in heretofore unprecedented numbers. There have always been deceptive copies of the smaller instruments simply due to the fact that they had value. But most of us know older bassists who were able to pick up great Italian basses for a few hundred dollars not too long ago. No one is going to bother to expertly copy such an instrument without much value. However, nowadays with basses fetching hundreds of thousands of dollars its a completely different story. While it is a daunting task to construct a convincing copy of a golden age Cremonese bass it is a bit less challenging to create a replica of an Italian bass 50 to 100 years old. Like Ken's "Bisiach", instruments in this price range are now worth putting the effort in to make a fraud. Now in the violin world there are more than a few experts who would be very hard to fool, they have just so much history doing that kind of thing. The bass world is a different story. I think Ken has a really great eye and I have nothing but respect for Arnold. However I think that few of us [myself included] in the bass world are very well prepared if we start seeing masterful forgeries of basses. Here's a story to illustrate how one of the most prominent experts was fooled. I took in a bass on trade some years ago from Bill Blossom of the NYP. It was labeled as a Dalla Costa and in fact was apparently Italian and of that period although I doubted that name strongly. Pietro Antonio Dalla Costa was said to make a few basses but his workmanship was highly masterful and this bass was anything but. The bass came to me without a scroll so I resolved to fashion a convincing fake. I pulled out all the stops and was pleased with the result. I sold the bass to a nice fellow new to the Houston Symphony letting him know of course that the scroll was a new one. A little less than two years passed and he graciously called me to say he loved the bass but was trading it in for a bigger bass [it was a little delicate]. It went to a very large internationally known shop. Some time went by and I got a call from the then stranger to me Ken Smith. His keen observational skills had noticed that I detailed on my website the construction of the fake and in fact it was listed on this "internationally known expert appraiser's" online archives as a bonafide Dalla Costa with original scroll and was sold as such. Ken found that quite amusing as did I. I am still amazed he figured that out. You might say-well you did a good job and I did, but not that good. A real expert would have known it was a forgery. It is just my opinion that at this time it is not that hard to put over a forgery so anyone contemplating buying an old bass really needs to be aware of this.

on that Scroll..
 

I saw earlier the masterful Scroll that Jeff made to fit the 'headless' Bass. I didn't really know Jeff in person back then. When I finally saw it on the other website a year or so later I ran back to Jeff's web and realized that my eyes were not tricking me. It was the same exact Scroll and Bass.

Now, I never saw that Bass in person or the new antiqued Scroll that Jeff made for it. The dealer however that was brokering the Bass did. When I discussed the Bass with Jeff afterwards, he mentioned something that he did that only he and whomever that would examine the Scroll close up would know or find.

Many old Basses from Italy and England often have 'worm' damage. Jeff thought it a good idea to fake some worm holes to make the Scroll more convincing. What he also did was to use a small rattail file to 'dress' the inside of the holes (or something like that but Jeff can correct me). The Rattail file will leave some small file marks 'inside' the worm holes. A close probably magnified inspection would reveal that the worm holes were man-made, not worm-made. That was the ingenious but I would say 'honest' effort Jeff put forth. Those file marks could have been smoothed out and/or distorted to hide the man-made fact and make the Scroll even more convincing even if closely inspected.

Like all the rest of the Scams in the world today we see daily. The Basses as Jeff describes are on the 'menu' for those that want to play that game.

The Bisiach that Jeff mentioned was according to him, a well made Bass and not something you see made everyday. I recently played a later 1946 Martini Bass and I would say that the Bisiach was actually a better sounding and playing Bass. The Martini however being authentic is worth twice the price. My Martini being maybe the oldest example of a Bass from that maker far exceeds the latter Bass as well in performance as well as value. I was happy to have the chance to see and compare an early and late Bass from the same Italian maker. Mine was made just after WWI and the other just after WWII. You can't say that every day of the week now can you?

I bought the Martini from an Italian Dealer as I did the Bisiach as well. One was really Italian and one was really not but was a great Bass regardless. Many of the actual fakes (not just antiqued Gypsy Basses) we have seen have been pretty good Basses. One authority mentioned to me that these Basses if properly labeled would fetch the going rate as many of the better handmade Basses made honestly like those we have seen from makers like Jeff, Arnold, Nick and others. Antiquing a Bass as well as some of them are is no easy task. You might as well do it on a good Bass to make the effort pay off. No one wants a junk Bass just because it looks old. Good is good, antiqued or not. First come the Bass after all.

I have seen (and owned) quite a few antiqued Basses now. Some of them were antiqued to add some old flavor character and some were done up to deceive. The wood inside the deceptive Gypsy Basses are often Acid-washed internally over the fresh new wood. This makes it look naturally oxidized until you scrape some wood away or remove a patch or piece of lining. Then you see this bleach white colored wood revealed like it was cut yesterday. If the Bass is older, then the bright color will fade but the Acid might actually protect the wood or rather prevent it from natural oxidation.

I saw Jeff's scroll too, and I will say that it could have fooled nearly anyone!

Ken, Look here on Maestronet forum, look familiar? http://www.maestronet.com/forum/inde...owtopic=319224

http://cgi.ebay.com/Italian-cello-by...1%7C240%3A1318

Look familiar?

I believe this is the same cello (located in Hungary).

http://www.netinstruments.com/cellos/cello/34740

Leandro died in 1946. Five years before the instrument was supposedly made...........

Wow! That looks exactly like what was being described above - clean 'bee-sting' violin corners, roughed up F-holes. And the varnish looks like Ken's former 'Bisiach' bass' varnish to boot.

?? nope..
 

You are confusing Leandro Sr. With his Son. This is the Bisiach Brothers supposed label, Giacomo & Leandro.

Still, the price is more Hungarian than Italian as is the antiqued Cello. Who knows, maybe it sounds better than a real Bisiach Bros. That's a lot of paperwork for one Cello, especially a modern one as the dates or the papers are the same as the Cello.

The label..
 

Ok, you Detectives. You have missed the biggest clue here. That is the label. The Bisiach Label, the real one is a normal sized one, not this big 'card' sized one which is the same one as was in my Bass. I have a book of 20th century makers and besides labels that have a section on address (business cards).

The 'label' used in both this Cello and my former Bass is actually the Bros. 'calling card', NOT their label.

The carving of the Scroll is typical of Hungarian fakes as seen on a pair of Goffriller's as well (Cello and Bass). This is not the 16th century hand knives of Poplar aged 400 years yet they make the upper turn look as if it was difficult to make smooth.

Look for the obvious signs. That makes it easier. You just need to know what those signs are.

On the Forum pics of the 3 Scrolls, the one on the left and right have similar markings of an old dull knife. The one in the middle has bad peg bushings. You would expect neater work unless it was done to make it look old. 1951 is not all that old. I don't feel old and I was born in that year as well. I still have MY original Neck.. lol

tangled webs
 

"Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive", Shakespeare.

The violin maker Roger Hargrave has pointed out that the best fakes are made by restorers who are in the best position to do so. The reason is that they are literally in close proximity to the originals and often learn to carry out extremely delicate and undetectable repairs. In short, they are the ones who develop the best skills to do the faking. I saw a Nicolo Amati violin about 25 years ago that had an entire section of the top replaced and it was absolutely undetectable to my eye even after it was pointed out to me the area that had been replaced. Wood, varnish, sub varnish, workmanship; undetectable.

Hargrave himself gained extra fame about a decade ago when it was discovered that a G.B. Guadanini violin up for auction was actually a recent work by him. The only reason it was detected was that a friend of Hargraves had seen the violin shortly after its completion at his shop and then discovered it at the auction. Hargrave himself had no knowledge of the deal.

Like many makers I've done a lot of antiquing with no intention to deceive and have sometimes been surprised and bemused by players who could not accept my telling them that the instrument was new. I pass this off as witness to the well established notion that we see what we wish to see.

Personally I have only seen two violins in my lifetime that absolutely convinced me that they were old when they were not and with both there was no attempt at disquising or presenting them as anything other than that of contemporary work and they had the labels of the makers. However, my suspicion is that they will both gain new, read "old", labels at some point in the future. Neither though had the appearance of Italian work.

Incidently, Hargrave has said that the work of the late 19th century and 20th century Italian makers is already so polluted that we may never know who made what.

Many violins were antiqued when they were made and are now quite old themselves lending some extra credence to their disquise. Some shops went to great length to antique violins including grafted scrolls and real reparied cracks.

I'll tell a story on myself. About 20 years ago I traveled to Pennsylvania to buy a beat up bass from an amatuer reparier in a small mountain community. After an enjoyable conversation and concluding the purchase of the bass I was in my car, engine running and ready to leave when the Pennslyvanian hurried back to my car with a somewhat battered violin that he said had been found by some friends inside a wall of an old house they were restoring. The neck was out, it was missing a C bout rib and of course it had an early 19th centruy Italian label. I ended up buying the violin and was quite taken with it, it had a label which matched that of a somewhat obscure Italian maker, but after the initial enthusiasm of the find wore off I realized that it was probably a modern Bohemian violin from around 1920 and that I had paid too much. I kept that violin as a reminder not to get carried away.

I believe that experienced and informed repairers and makers would spot a faked bass reputedly from the classic period in a heart beat. However, as with violins, early to mid 20th centruy fakery would be much harder to detect. Most of us have not seen enough known legitimate works. I know of few early to mid 20th century Italian makers who have concentrated on basses, so it would be easier for someone to take a bass from this period and pass it off as Italian but with the caveat that it was handmade, one of a kind bass and not a mass produced product from one of the factories.
Two years ago a player showed me his bass which had been sold to him as a 20th century Italian bass. All I could tell him in honesty was that I had seen two other basses attributed to that maker and that it was not by the same maker. It's my belief that the bass was Italian but it was not made by the person who had made the other basses with that attribution, and I have no way of knowing if the other two basses were made by the maker they were attributed to. The question then is how would anyone know? And that may be the subject of another post as my coffee is calling me and I don't feel like writing any more right now.

"Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive", Shakespeare. ?
 

"Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive", Shakespeare.?

In the Morris book of British makes at the end of the chapter on BF Fendt II, he writes, and I 'quote';

"Oh what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to deceive!"

Slightly different but I never knew its origin 'till now.

The English made actual fakes over 150 years ago but we seem now to mainly point the finger at the Gypsy's. The Morris Book was written about a century ago originally. My book is an original second edition from 1920. At that point in time, the Fendt's were viewed as criminals for the most part. Today, we think of them as the most clever workman ever to work the British Isles. These are the sons of Bernhardt Fendt I. Also in that mix add the son of his pupil John Lott I which is JF Lott Jr. aka Jack Lott. Between the 2nd generation of London makers of the Fendts and Jack Lott, we have many a crooked fiddle roaming around. Some of the Basses made back then were antiqued as well but rarely. After 150-200 years, they are actually very old. My own Hart bass is from that era and looks ages older than my Violincello grade Gilkes Bass which was made with the most transperant high grade Varnish of its time. The crackled Red over the Gold makes the Hart look from a distance like a real Maggini, not just a model. I have seen a Kennedy Bass like this as well.

Shake
 

Ken,
"Oh wad the power the Gifty gae us, to see ourselves as others see us"
Bobby Burns.

As in the other quote....don't quote me on that.

Ken, I have got to wonder whether that book is entirely authentic . . . .

Thanks for the moment's grin. BEST, SAM

typo..
 

Good eyes Sam.. 20th century, not 29th. I fixed it and edited the quote as well. Please forgive me. We should live so long.. On my keyboard the 9 and 0 are right next to each other. Doesn't 0 come before 1?

Enabling fakery
 

Sadly the Brinser book on modern Italian makers has enabled the fakers by providing pages of facimiles of the labels.
I was in a violin shop once that had a modern Chinese instrument varnished from the white with a label in it from that book. Since I had just identified a Cremonese violin without recourse to looking at the label they handed me the new violin and said that it had been varnished at the shop by one of their repairers. I've wondered then and since then if they would had mentioned it if I hadn't identified the first violin? Let's hope so.
But as I mentioned above the identification of contemporary Italian violin makers has been hopelessly poluted already. It will be even harder in a hundred years to know what's what.
I was told by an expert in American violins (there may be only one) that many hand made American violins are sent to Europe where they acquire the spurious Italian labels. The reason being is that they so closely resemble those violins. After the death of G B Guadanini the Italian apprenticeship system pretty much died out so that those who wanted to make violins were mostly self taught which was also the case with most American makers up until the advent of the American violin making schools which now only covers a span of about thirty years.

Labels and..
 

Besides Brinser there are many Labels in the Jalovec books as well as some of the old English Books.

On your Guad./apprentice comment, is this just Turin or all of Italy? I don't think this is true in general. Maybe the industry itself died down a little along with it the desire to apprentice in that field.

On the Label thing once again, many a dealer have taken labels out of instruments and replaced them with either a more famous one or just made a fake more famous one if not just throw a label in it to mark up the price. Our friend Bob B. has seen plenty of 'homeless' labels in his time. In my opinion, short of a disaster, there is very little reason to remove a label from an instrument other than for the purpose of profiteering.

labels
 

One of the most import ways of identifying an instrument is to know what the genuine label looks like. Brinser did a service by showing us copies of labels from violins he had purchased directly from the makers. So they are both a source of help and a source of tomfoolery. That's also somewhat true with all of the books that have copies of labels, it's just that the Brinser book is the most reliable for 20th centruy Italian makers and they in turn are the ones whose identities are being co opted.

So far as I know, Carol Berzoni (III?) and G. B Guadanini are considered to be the last of the Cremonese makers from the golden period. I'm not sure of the exact period or number of years, but there were no makers in Cremona for a long time. It is believed that the Ceruti were self taught (though their instruments are exceptionally well crafted and designed), and I think there are many sources that say that the direct line of maker to apprentice died out. I've seen two or three dozen 19th and up to mid 20th century Italian violins and they are pretty crude by comparison to the earlier makers. Their work was often haphazard, or we might even say somewhat artistic, but at least they knew the classic design. In the late 19th century and early 20th century there are some real stand outs like the Bisiachs and the Antonazzis but most of them are the also rans. Workmanship and varnish are crude. I know a man who went to the Italian school in Cremona in the early 70s and he said they did not even teach varnishing and knew nothing about how to produce a good varnish. He had to learn it later. He said that the only varnish they made was straight shellac. I worked on a cello made at the school in 1974, this was in 76 or 77 and it was fairly crude and had a butt ugly varnish. Of course since it was "Italian" (by an American) the price paid was astronomical for the time.

huh?
 

Carol Berzoni (III?) and G. B Guadanini?

Who is Carol Berzoni? Do you mean Carlo Bergonzi?

G. B Guadanini? You mean G.B. GuadaGnini, right? By the way, he was NOT from Cremona, sorry. The Gaud. family mainly worked in and around Turin, not Cremona.

Ceruti reportedly learned from Storioni and took over his shop. Storioni is considered to be the last great or traditional Cremona maker but both G.B Ceruti and his son Giuseppe were great in their own right as well. This info I offer only from what I have read. No one I know was alive back then! I have seen a Bass by each of them. Outstanding to say the least.

ok
 

Thanks for the correctins especially on the spellings. I shuda kept my books. Bergonzi mispelling was a typo, Guadagnini a mistake.
I thought Resengard had said Ceruti was self taught. If he learned from Storioni it would certainly explain the quality of both father and son's work.

learned from..
 

First off, was just trying to avoid confusion. With the books, we are all smart.. lol

As far as who learned from whom, we weren't there so we go with the flow until proven wrong. On Martini for instance, most books say he learned from S.Scarampella. One dealer in modern Italian Violins who actually might have been associated with Brinser (sold me my Brinser book as well) said that Martini may have known Scarampella and consulted with him but was NOT his pupil for Violin making. In these days, you hang out in a shop, ask a few questions, go home and try a few things and then tell people you learned from that person. No formal enrollment required, just a different perspective on 'learning from'! In the case of Samuel Gilkes and John Thomas Hart there are documents on record of his apprenticeship contract so there's no mystery there.

memories
 

Sometimes information gets shifted around in the old brain and doesn't come out right later when one wants to make the recollection.

I may have associated Guadagnini with Cremona for erroneous reasons.
A lot of people went through the shop of Nicolo Amati. There is one Stradivari violin from his early period that says "alumnus Nicolo Amati" but there is no other information that I know of that links him directly to the Amati shop. Since he lived in Cremona he may have simply walked to the shop for instruction, there would have been no need for him to have lived there. His early instruments bear a likeness to Nicolo's work, but someone pointed out that he was so talented that he might have just copied one.

The reason I mention this is that I believe there are some Guadagnini instruments that bear the inscription on their label as "alumnus Stradivari". That of course doesn't mean that he was Stradivari's pupil. It may only mean that he was trying to get a few more pesos for his work.
On the other hand a lot of people went through Stradivari's shop who might not have been recorded as having worked there. Some think that Guarneri del Gesu may have worked for Stradivari during the ten year period where we find no instruments made by him.
In the case of Guadagnini we know from Count Cozio de Salabue that he employed him to make instruments for him from the molds and designs of Stradivari that he purchased from Stradivari's son Paolo.

I wonder what Duane Rosengard has had to say about it? I understand that he has a new well researched book on Guadagnini.

well...
 

I don't have a copy of that book and it's out of print as well. I would buy one if it came up for sale at a fair price to me.

On the Alumni to Strad, Alessandro Gagliano and his brother G.B., both reportedly worked for him. I did find however a reference for Lorenzo Guadagnini who worked for Strad. Typically the Guad. family worked in Turin as well as Milan and Piacenza and some other places. I guess there is some Strad in at least one member of the family as well as his son who started in Cremona. Many of this family moved around. I just saw a few labels in the Jalovec book that shows a few of the members as alumni to Strad. News to me. Being into Bass mainly I never noticed. My bad, sorry Martin. You were right.

Right now my jaw is a little sore from pulling by foot out of my mouth. I admit that my memory of what I have read was true but my readings were not complete. My sincere apologies.

What does all of this have to do with Basses? Well, very little but some. Basses were made by members of both the Gagliano and Guadagnini families. I have never heard of any of the Basses coming from Cremona though. Giuseppe Guadagnini, the oldest of the family trained with N.Amati so I guess the 'roots' are from Cremona with this family but according to who you read, the association with Strad is 'loose' if at all mentioned.

and then
 

Absolutely no need for an apology. I was clearly wrong. As someone said, there's a reason why erasures are put on pencils.

What did this have to do with basses? You started a very good topic on the eastern European fakes now on the market and then one thing let to another. I get a little bent sometimes when things get off topic and this time I think I'm the one who was responsible. But I think we were talking about the difficult task of identification which led to f-hole placement which led to how the Italians themselves lost the how and why they did things.

I forgot to mention on the f hole placement issue that Sacconi said he didn't think that Stradivari's sons even understood why the old man put them where he did because he was no sooner dead than they started moving them around. I prefer to think that they had been ordered around by the old man for so long that they just wanted to try out some of their own ideas. I can just hear him saying, "put the f holes there because I said too, no ands ifs or buts!"

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive."
Sir Walter Scott (the author), being an Englishman, spelt the verb form of 'practice' with an 's'.
Sorry, but detail is important.

Detail?
 

But to deceive, it must be spelled/spelt correctly, no?;)

Ken, my dear friend, what the heck are you talking about?
Sorry, but I don't get your point.
And, I must add, how does having a winking blue guy assist my understanding? I mean, you might as well have someone performing souix war dance!

well..
 

The quote in question was from an old book I have and made in reference to the Fendts that made many copies and forgeries of Strad and Guarnieri. To forge, you must make it correctly hence, spelling in your case..;);)

Sorry Ken, my dear friend.
"To forge, you must make it correctly hence, spelling in your case..;);)"
Should I read this sentence more in context? I understand that the quote is from an old book. Where was the book written?
Did the author of this old book explain things with little faces? (I'm teasing with this one!)
So, to forge, you must get things right - is that what you're saying?
What is the spelling that you are referring to?

where written?
 

The Book is from England, the same place where the makers are he referred to. The word was practise (from 'practise to deceive'), spelled (spelt?) practice.:)

ok?

Harry Botham, ex LSO and principal of the NZSO in the very early 1960s, owned a Fendt. I hope my memory is correct here. I took a few lessons off him in the 1970s. He charged NZ$20, which included at least two glasses of Port Wine.