9-1-1, 9-1-1, 9-1-1, Luthier on the loose..

[Ken Smith]

Ok, sorry for the alarm BUT it is in no way a false alarm! Actually, it's a wake up call.

I have seen so much bad work done in my time as well as some that I would call Criminal.

Can you Sue for this if you're a victim?

Will they put anyone out of business if convicted in Court?

Has anyone served any time in Jail yet for Luthier crimes?

I think to date, the answer is 'No' for all of the above.

Why am I starting this thread? Well, just about every situation I am going to lay out here as well as some of the true stories I have seen evidence of I have already discussed here in one thread or another. The reason is to educate others what to look for, what to expect of good work, what to demand to be done and not to be done as well as what to look out for.

Ok, lets go down a list of things that some Luthiers in the past have done as well as a few things (if not all of them) that some still do that they shouldn't.

Scroll Graft: The Graft angle should always be within the line of the Fingerboard joint or slightly behind it. Never should it be pitched forward. Why? Because if it's forward of the FB joint you can't put a C-Extension on without cutting into the Scroll.

Continuing along these lines, the Scroll should never be cut on a valuable pedigree Bass, ever. Recently I was looking over a beautiful old Pedigree bass (no names) to possibly purchase to collect, play, clean-up and then possibly re-sell when I've had my thrills with it. When I went back to try the bass and make my final decision, I noticed for the first time that the Extension was sitting on a cut area of the Volute of the Scroll. The Extension was un-cut and left straight edged with no attempt shown to cut and inlay around the Scroll. Also, it didn't look like there was a problem with the Graft angle. This was just a lazy act by the Luthier who has also worked on and maintained this bass over the years. Well guess what? I walked away from the deal. I was so turned off by the Scroll cut and for no reason other than laziness that I decieded that I could not trust the internal work either if the same Luthier that did this, worked on the inside of the bass. So, don't ever Cut the Scroll on a good bass.

On one Bass I have in restoration now we noticed that the Top if not all of the Bass had been re-finished. Why? No matter how bad the condition was, touch-up, clear-coat and French polish would have been a better and more responsible decision. This is not a famous Pedigree (that we know of yet) but is still a nice old Bass. The stain in the Top has shaded the grain of the softer Spruce. The Maple Back and Ribs are tighter and harder grained wood so it was hard to see at first if these areas were re-done as well. The work is professionally done and I don't recall any obvious sanding scratches. Still, it was done and it shouldn't have been. Sometimes, Luthiers think that the final stage of a restoration is a re-finish. If you re-finish a bass, expect that if asked, I may NOT take it in trade or buy it for that reason alone.

One Bass recently had a sunken Top over the bassbar. We have all seen them. This one had the Bass bar sprung in so much that it pulled off the Bass after it couldn't sink anymore and ripped off a thickness patch with it that was put in to beef-up the overly thinned re-graduation that was over done as well. Since I didn't know this particular bass before it was worked on, I can't say if the graduation was necessary to begin with. The evidence left behind tells me it was overdone and wood has to be added back in to correct the thickness.

A scroll on one bass had been cracked and glued together with crazy glue. Now it can't be re-repaired so we have to work around it as-is. The machines cover most of the repair and the Scroll graft took out half of it as well so it is re-repaired but not exactly how I would have liked it to be done. DON'T let Luthiers use Crazy Glue on the Scroll, Top, Back, Ribs or any other permanent part of your bass. If you fix a split in your tailpiece or a shim in your bridge with it, fine, it's not a pernament part of the bass. TPs, and Bridges get changed all the time. The main components that make up a bass do not.

Be careful what shop you take your work to. Know somethinmg about these subjects. Discuss them with your Luthier. Don't let him de-value your bass by performing bad work on it. How would it feel if you brought me a bass fully restored to trade in or sell and I said "fine, I like the bass BUT, deduct $15k so I can fix and re-do all the BAD work that was done wrong". Would you like to hear that? I think not.

Have you ever been ripped off buying a used car? Ever been ripped off getting your car fixed? Well, if that happens you can take legal action. Has anyone taken action against a Luthier that you know of and won a case in court? I would like to know, really.

On Bass buying, names, origins, conditions and values, you can all be in trouble if you walk in to the wrong shop and you don't know anything but what they tell you. My experience?

Ok, one bass I sold years ago with one Italian label and two sets of papers to back it up now has a more famous name appraised, 100 years older and has a label to match. Is that even legal? PUT IN a Label and take the old one out?

German Basses being sold as French or Italian is another HUGE crime I have seen so many times.
One big shop even sold a 1/2 sized Blockless Wonder as an Italian Bass at about 10-20x its value for what it actually was then, in my opinion.
Another big shop sold a German Bass as french with papers and even described standard German traits as standard French traits and valuated it at least double its value at the time of sale. The repair work was not only bad inside, it was self destructive from the criminal acts performed internally. This I would call insult to injury. You get ripped off on the origin, price, appraised value and its going to fall apart besides.

I can fill a book with all of the crimes I have seen. I have spent thousands of dollars correcting bad and damaging work done by some Luthiers and that is PER Bass, not in total. Basses are big and do break on their own or get damaged by being so big anyway. Why does a Luthier have to injure the handicapped on purpose. Isn't that a shame? A crime?

This is the place to discuss this subject. I do not want to name Luthiers or actual basses here or even imply anything or anyone directly. Let's just discuss the Acts and what should or shouldn't be done as far as what's best for the bass in question.

[Thomas Erickson]

Basses are big and do break on their own or get damaged by being so big anyway. Why does a Luthier have to injure the handicapped on purpose. Isn't that a shame? A crime?

It is a shame, and in many cases should be a crime. I think there are two distinct reasons, coming from two different types of luthiers. There's the ignorant one, who probably has good intentions but doesn't know (much) better, and then there's the one I object to most - the "gambler". The guy who isn't so much repairman, caretaker, or even dealer so much as he's a bass pimp. All that matters to him is maximizing the apparent value of an instrument, whether it's the sound, pedigree, or both, so that he can not only market and sell it for as much money as possible, but reinforce his own image at the same time by becoming known as "the guy with the goods" in town. The bass suffers from the tactics employed to make it seem "better" - new label/papers, thinned top, short string length, sloppy repairs etc. and the customer ends up with a problem bass that he's not only upside-down in, but that probably doesn't really play and/or sound as good as he initially thought it did; or, if it does, it won't someday soon when it starts coming apart...

[Ken Smith]

You left out the 3rd kind. The one that KNOWS how to fix a bass but to make more money the do it some sloppy way and charges a fortune. Also, well known famous shops selling what is NOT and getting the price.

Look, if they are not capable of doing the job they should get a different job. Also, for the veteran dealer luthiers, if they cant tell German from French or Italian from German, get another Job. Can a car dealer tell a Chevy from a Caddy? A Ford from a Lincoln? A Honda from a Lexis? Is it a crime to misrepresent? Yes, even in basses it is.

I know so many cases of criminal repairs and criminal sales that its not funny.

I know most basses are either not marked or labeled wrong but that is no excuse for lying outright.

I saw one bass for sale with a company name attached advertised as made in 1910. The company dissolved in 1889. It was a Riveiri-Hawkes marked bass but was only a German factory bass. Maybe 1910 but the R-H models were french Jacquet basses., This was German and not at all any kind of Hawkes bass.

Then one dealer marks a French bass by one of the sons of a famous bass making family as 1850. Then marked lated as another of the sons as well at 1850. Well if this was the true maker then he was wither 2 years old or 12 years old when it was made. Maybe the father made it but shouldn't the dealer at least know when they were born. This is published info and a big shop like this that does appraisals should know this.

With the well known Juzek imports, we know from published history that they started the company after the first war about 1920. All Juzek basses were supplied by shops and shipped to NYC and then labeled and sold. I saw a German looking bass as marked 'made in the Juzek shop in 1910'. Why? First off, there is no such shop. Second, it's 10 years before the company started. There is no way I can see that these dealers don't know this. I think they are counting on You NOT knowing.

Hey, you got 2-10s for a 5?.. Yeah, funny, but too many people are falling for that kind of math doing business with these shops.

Hey, how about a very old Italian Bass attributed to Maggini in for repair. The Luthier goes and re-graduates the bass without the permission of the owner, because he needs to correct Maggini's mistakes? Yeah, right. One of the inventors of the instrument needs help from the Butcher of...

Then a beautiful old Italian or English bass getting restored. Some think it's Italian and I think it might be an English bass but regardless, "Hey, by the way I re-finished it for you as well"... HUH???

I tell you now, if this happens to me, someone will get hurt.

Re-finishing an old Bass or re-graduating it to the point of near ruins is a form of Rape. Where is Rape legal? Selling a bass for something more famous and expensive is thievery. Where is stealing legal?

The Luthiers that don't know any better are not the big problem here as much as the well known experienced ones who should know better. Yes, I have seen bad work done out of ignorance but they just didn't know any better. When you see a fine instrument fixed with crazy glue, epoxy or carpenters glue because it's quicker, THAT is criminal.

[Thomas Erickson]

Interesting that you compare the bass market to that of autos.

Most informed people, and certainly those familiar with the industry, know that when you visit a car dealer what you see is not what you get; similarly, that virtually every body shop out there (certainly those hooked to insurance) do bad work and will take advantage of you at every turn. These aren't things worth griping about or trying to change, rather, they're just part of life and if you want to buy a car or get one fixed, you educate yourself and wade in - if you play the game well, you come out fine - If you get screwed, the only one to blame is yourself.

And I'm not saying that salesmen who lie, bodyshops that do hack work and cheat, any of that is ok, because obviously it isn't!

So my question is - where does the idea of "buyer beware" come into play in the world of basses? It's hard enough for a person to learn the basics of buying and/or selling a car, or to understand how insurance and body repair works, let alone the ability to recognize on sight a car that's been wrecked and fixed - and there are infinite resources out there! So when it comes to basses, at what point and to what degree should a person buying a bass or having work done be expected to have his own back and know what he's dealing in? After all, business is business and this is America - making money is always at someone else's expense...

[Ken Smith]

Buying a bass for 8k that was only worth 4k when you bought it is not business, it's robbery.

A dealer/luthier fixing a bass poorly or springing in a bar that well self implode is not bad work. It is vandalism.

Buying a modern Ford Escort and being told it's vintage Ford Mustang is not buyer education/buyer beware. The dealer is supposed to have the products labeled correctly. After all, he's the dealer representing the product and its not a Flea market as-is amateur to amateur type of sale. Deception is Fraud.

The last I heard, Robbery, Vandalism and Fraud were all crimes you could go to jail for and serve time.

Selling faked Hungarian Basses (or Violins or Cellos) and knowing they are Fakes is Fraud. Yet dealers continue to attempt to deceive until someone falls for it. How can this be legal and why are these people practicing this criminal deception NOT in Jail yet?

Look, you walk down a dark alley in a bad neighborhood late at night and two teens pull a knife on you and rob you. That is business as usual. But, you walk into a beautiful shop with violins through basses or maybe just basses and you buy a Hungarian fake and pay over 100k to get what you think is an old Italian classic. That is NOT business as usual. That is criminal deception. At lease in the alley you knew you were in trouble. In a Bass/Violin shop with permits displayed to do business and all the success and reputation you have been taught to believe you don't expect to be clubbed over the head by the shop owner. You are relaxed and trusting as you are talked to, showed around and given time to choose your instrument only to find out you were safer in the ally. There at least the kids could only take what you have. Not make you mortgage your house for some fake that will take years to pay for and only be worth a fraction of what you paid at any given time.

If you get a particular pedigree and it's back dated by estimate, its only minor but in the case of a Strad, paying 6 instead of 2 million, it's still a huge loss. Buying a Strad that is really a Fendt forgery is robbery as well.

Dealers and makers (in the minority, I hope!) have been robbing and deceiving for centuries. Bass players need to take action and get other dealers/luthiers in as witnesses to fight these crimes so it can at least slow down if not stop. I can see how mistakes can be made but people continue to go to these shops and even though some or maybe most of their dealings is honest, like in Russian roulette, there is that one bullet waiting for you.

[Adrian Levi]

I' m guessing that if an instrument is sold with a guarantee from the seller that said instrument is exactly what its meant to be , then there must be some legal recourse if the instrument turns out to be a fake . I wonder how often sellers are actually under the impression that they 'may' be selling fakes ? If I had the funds to go and buy an antique Italian Masterpiece then I'd be sure to have it carbon dated just in case it may be 'off' by 100 years or so

I also suppose that if a dealer knowingly sold you a fake instrument you may be able to lay a charge of fraud , whether or not you could prove that the seller actually was aware that he was selling a fake is another thing......