Colors..

[William Stephens]

Originally Posted by Ken Smith

On your Viennese bass looking German, show some pics of it. In later years they did look more Germanic than the old Vienna and Prague classics of the 18th and 19th century.

Here are some pics of the bass. I apologise for the standard of the photography!

The name on the label is Franz Xaver Güttler. Having done a little bit of net-based research It appears this maker was better known for producing guitars and zithers, although he does seem to have made violins too.

I was wondering if maybe it was a german instrument he might have purchased in the white or something like that.

It's a pretty overgrown bass, with a back length of 116 cm and a normal string stop of 110, although it has been shortened to 108 via a big bridge cheat.

The f holes are very wide apart (almost 7" at the narrowest point), and the bass bar is very far out from the centre, so much so that when I had a new bridge put on it by Mike Hart earlier this year he to use a 5 string blank, and even that isn't wide enough! He had to set the bridge slightly off to the bass side to get the foot to sit on top of the bar.

Could this maybe be an error made by a guitar maker trying make a bass...hmmm


Thanks

Will