Brian, as you compliment me on what you have learned from my bass Posts I must say that a good part of what I know is from reading. That Link you posted which I just copy and pasted in the previous 3 posts is something all history interested persons should read.
It is not often you can read an actual interview of accounts that happened 100 years ago. A Strad then worth $25k and the owner playing a new Violin in its place. This maker himself describing his challenges to make 3 Violins as well as using various timbers from around the globe. He mentions that in the 3 Violins he made them to match by working each kind of wood to have a certain relative stiffness to each.
Graduations of wood should be only measured within itself and not as compared to something else. The wood material itself should govern how thick IT needs to be and not made by Design!
A true story in point is this new English Lott model Bass I just bought. One person mentioned to a potential buyer while giving advise against the sale that the Top seemed too thin. Well, I have the Bass over at Arnold's for some restoration work because the Bass needed to be opened and the back Braces changed. When he measured the Top he realized that although it was thin by design, the graduations were all uniform to each other. Then he commented that due to the hardness of the wood which was 200 year old Pitch Pine (taken from an Old Beam when a Victorian School house was torn down in England a few years back) allowed for the Top to be a few millimeters thinner than the average Spruce Top that we see. Also, if the wood is softer than normal then thicker graduations can be allowed as proven in the Article within.
So Brain, for all that you say you may have learned from reading my Posts I have just been schooled as well from reading your Link. Your new Bass has a few very good things going for it. First off, the condition of the Bass as far as damage, not wear is fantastic for its age being that is it just a plain-Jane Flatback German import. Second, from this article I can see that in its time, there was no better person I could imagine that could have repaired the Bass and made it into something much better than what the German shop intended it to be. Third, this Bass seems to have been in the Portland area for no less than about 70 years and that may also be the biggest 'plus' for it as far as condition as far as climate changes go.
If the price seems right then getting this Bass looks to be a good move on your part.
Do these look similar?
