The Great English Double Basses

[Ken Smith]

Last year I saw and held a beautiful B.S. Fendt Amati model Bass with a golden brown Varnish. Nice and sweet, rich and colorful sounding Bass. I also tried a handwritten labeled English Bass from a J.Wilkins, 1893, London. This was a gamba shaped Bass and had a sweet English sound as well. A few years ago Kolstein had a James Brown gamba shaped English Bass that reminds me very much in shape, size and color of this Wilkins Bass. I believe the J.Brown Bass is still on Kolsteins Archives but I don't have access to it.

Since the Basses were not mine and were only brought for comparison purposes as my Dodd and Martini were tried out, I didn’t take any pics of them.

Just prior to that I looked at a Maggini model Fendt and had similar style FFs but was covered in a deep rich Reddish Varnish over Gold which showed thru in some warn areas. and. Usually the Maggini and d'Salo model Fendts have the Brecian FFs but I have heard of another Maggini model Fendt as well still bearing the Amati style FFs. It turned out that the Red colored Fendt had 4 tiny stamps inside the back that said J.HART. Only after the Back came off and was being cleaned did we find this hidden treasure.