Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg Cordez
Hi Ken and everyone.
Could I please ask, once again for your thoughts and advice on this bass im looking to perhaps buy?
The seller is saying its from Trieste, and perhaps a Dollenz, or from one of his pupils. Its unlabelled, so its open to all sorts of conjecture.
From the photos,its seems to me to have a bunch of German characteristics which is making me curious. Morelli? Seller is saying that at the time Trieste was part of Austro-hungarian empire and would account for this. The outerlinings and tuners look very german/tyrol to me and i wanted to see what your thoughts are on it? Cremona school or perhaps not?
Many thanks in advance.
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No, sorry. This is a nice early 20th century German bass. It is not Italian and is not at all a Dollenz by any stretch of the imagination.
Morelli is a brand name used by a mid-west distributor in the early 20th century. Not all basses made by those shops (and they were made by more than one) were made for the Morelli brand. However, this bass is similar to those basses. Even the varnish, scroll and gears are 20th century German from the Saxon area. The Tuners are NOT Tyrol. People attributing things to the Tyrol often do it erroneously. I have seen actual Tirol basses and in pictures as well. Nothing I have seen from the Tirol looks modern to me or like the rest of Germany. It looks like another world, secluded from the other countries.
There are many of these nicer German basses marketed as French and even Italian. This may be due to the nice violin outline and roundback made 'in the Italian tradition' but were copied by both the French, Germans and others. My
Kreutzer bass from Brno (Moravia) actually looks Italian as well. It is what it is, like with this bass.
Austro-hungarian empire did not change the tradition of the local customs and crafts. That is just Politics. If suddenly we become part of China tomorrow, will we start speaking Chinese and eating with chop sticks?