Carpathian Spruce

[Martin Sheridan]

Sacconi claims that Stradivari thought that Carpathian Mountain maple was better tone wood and that Stradivari used it when he could. I'm not sure how he would know that? Some of my wood guys who have cut wood all over the world (including the Carpathian mountains) say that you can't tell one from the other with the naked eye dispite what many people think.

I think this is good tone wood, but I like Canadian red spruce and red maple a lot, and that upper west coast Big Leaf maple is simply beautiful.
I might add that a friend of mine bought some wood from that part of the Carpathian mountains in Russia and it wasn't worth anything but fire wood.