Tarantino

[Neil Garber]

I have a former student coming over today with a Tarantino he is considering. Same model. It dates from the 50's. I'm going to photograph it and its label too.

[Ken Smith]

That looks like a modern bass, 1950's-60s. Same thin spirit varnish found on German basses from the same post war period. The Shamrock inlay is classic Tarantino.

How does it sound? 50 years old? 80-90 years old?

[Neil Garber]

Originally Posted by Ken Smith

That looks like a modern bass, 1950's-60s. Same thin spirit varnish found on German basses from the same post war period. The Shamrock inlay is classic Tarantino.

How does it sound? 50 years old? 80-90 years old?

Difficult to say how it sounds in years, but I'd tend toward 50 years old. The marked 1955 bass my student showed me today looks older. I suppose there's no way to really know when my instrument was built.

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Neil Garber

Difficult to say how it sounds in years, but I'd tend toward 50 years old. The marked 1955 bass my student showed me today looks older. I suppose there's no way to really know when my instrument was built.

Show it to Scaramelli. He might have a good idea of its age.

[Neil Garber]

So, here I am 7 years later. I recently had an extensive rehab of this bass by Arnold Schnitzer. He agreed it was a 50's bass, but what clinched it was that when he removed the bass bar to replace it, found that it had been glued in with white PVA glue, which wasn't available until 1947.