[Martin Sheridan]

Ken, you are probably right on. Arnold and I were discussing arching in another thread and after I posted my thoughts I reflected on the Italian basses I've seen. To begin with in my early bass making days a lot of the basses I was shown as Italian I now realize were not. A few years ago I looked at some "Italian" basses in one of our orchestras and at least one of them was not Italian. Being "Italian" has been the quickest way to sell an instrument for a couple of hundred years or more. The Rogeri that you and I discussed recently has an original label and I don't think anyone has ever tried to say that it's not, yet I've seen several violins attributed to G.B Rogeri that I can't say bore any resemblance to my eyes as being from the same maker. Maybe the bass was made by an apprentice? Maybe the violins weren't Rogeris? You can look at a good book on the Italian makers and there hundreds if not thousands of them, but isn't it curious that we see the same names coming up over and over again at auctions? What happened to these other makers? One has to suspect that they have become known by other names, and you don't have to look any further than the money motive to discern why.
There are many English made basses that have become Italian and the reason is that they did the best job of immitating Italian work.

For what it's worth. I was told that the Hawkes Panormo models were made in Germany and France. I have seen some with and without the outside linings and I thought the ones without the outside linings were French?