Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam Sherry
Many posters may find this monograph concerning tree-ring dating of the Special K Bass interesting.
Cool pic of Serge Koussevitzky with his bass too! |
Thank's Sam for the article link. This is nothing new about this Bass as we have known for years it's nothing Italian at all. The age they place is the youngest possible but that doesn't mean it is so. What if it was an old piece of wood they used? What if the wood came from a building beam? I have a new English bass with 200 year old Top wood. Panormo made some Violin backs from an old Billard table. Using old wood on new instruments is nothing new.
I have heard that the Back and Top are from different instruments making the Bass a composite and the Scroll even more recent English work.
The most pedigree thing about this Bass is who owned and played it and now who made the parts or modified it either.
Many old basses have stories to tell. usually it is too expensive to do all the testing to make such a report. Imagine having a report on every old bass attached to it at the time of sale. What would that add to the price?
Wood dating usually only tells us the earliest it could have been made and not actually when it was constructed. More like when it was NOT constructed is the case. The rest is a bit of guess work.