Talk of Fakes (or Antiqued newer Basses) came up......

[Ken McKay]

Here is something odd to me. Look at the contrast in work on the same bass. The corner work is first class showing a superb bee-sting, yet the f-fluting looks as if the maker didn't know how to sharpen a gouge or plane.

I have done a lot of faux antiquing myself (still working on making it convincing ) so I have developed an eye for a fake. Most antiquing done for artistic reasons does not involve wood destruction except maybe a few dings and dents. And corners might be worn in a realistic way, but that seems rare to me, at least in violins. And the lack of cracks is also a tell tale as Ken said.

Varnish wears in different ways but creates patterns that are very difficult to duplicate. Good varnish does not stick completely to the ground underneath and flakes off in large sections early on in its life. The sections that do stick, however, seem to stick forever. The sections where the varnish is gone should show old wood.

The wood underneath the varnish is the hardest to get to look old by artificial means. A general aged gold/yellow will do the trick but does not have the subtle dark honey tone of real aged wood.

Makers like the Kramers (Pohlman) have a "stylized" aging that the Germans are known for. It is very nice looking but easily recognizable.

[Ken Smith]

Forgive me for only having the Back 'bee sting' displayed. The Top and Back rarely match on any Bass as working Maple or Spruce is quite different. The Top usually looks much older than the Back on old Basses because it takes more of a beating.

Look here at the Top and Back pics of the Bass.


There is some gouging in the C-bouts that looks like 'after' graduation work;


On this Bass Ken, the maker was NOT the same person that antiqued the Bass. The Scroll work however matches the antiquing process. The Corner work was done by the maker. A different hand entirely. All the Corners on this Bass are 'stung', Top and Back. The extra gouging in and around the 'F' flutes were done as antiquing after the Bass was made. That was a 'red flag' as well to my eye.

This Bass however sounded great in the Orchestra and even did a few jazz gigs with it. It stood on its own and sounded at least as old as it was 'trying' to look. It was a good Bass, period!

[Matthew Heintz]

Originally Posted by Ken McKay

Here is something odd to me. Look at the contrast in work on the same bass. The corner work is first class showing a superb bee-sting, yet the f-fluting looks as if the maker didn't know how to sharpen a gouge or plane.

Educate me. I'm ignorant. What exactly are ya'll seeing in the f-fluting?

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Matthew Heintz

Educate me. I'm ignorant. What exactly are ya'll seeing in the f-fluting?

Ken McKay sees that the antique work looks different than the makers hand in the Purfling bee sting work. He is 100% correct. The Bass was antiqued 'after' it was made and done by a different person. The F-fluting was altered to show wear and distress.

[Arnold Schnitzer]

Some "craftsman" took a concave scraper to the area around the f-holes and scraped the crap out of it to try and make it look handmade. But the texture is localized, which makes it obvious fakery.

[Matthew Heintz]

Originally Posted by Arnold Schnitzer

Some "craftsman" took a concave scraper to the area around the f-holes and scraped the crap out of it to try and make it look handmade. But the texture is localized, which makes it obvious fakery.

Got it. Thank you.

[Jeff Bollbach]

This is an interesting and dangerous subject. I use the word dangerous because I believe now is the time that fraudulent basses are apt to enter the market in heretofore unprecedented numbers. There have always been deceptive copies of the smaller instruments simply due to the fact that they had value. But most of us know older bassists who were able to pick up great Italian basses for a few hundred dollars not too long ago. No one is going to bother to expertly copy such an instrument without much value. However, nowadays with basses fetching hundreds of thousands of dollars its a completely different story. While it is a daunting task to construct a convincing copy of a golden age Cremonese bass it is a bit less challenging to create a replica of an Italian bass 50 to 100 years old. Like Ken's "Bisiach", instruments in this price range are now worth putting the effort in to make a fraud. Now in the violin world there are more than a few experts who would be very hard to fool, they have just so much history doing that kind of thing. The bass world is a different story. I think Ken has a really great eye and I have nothing but respect for Arnold. However I think that few of us [myself included] in the bass world are very well prepared if we start seeing masterful forgeries of basses. Here's a story to illustrate how one of the most prominent experts was fooled. I took in a bass on trade some years ago from Bill Blossom of the NYP. It was labeled as a Dalla Costa and in fact was apparently Italian and of that period although I doubted that name strongly. Pietro Antonio Dalla Costa was said to make a few basses but his workmanship was highly masterful and this bass was anything but. The bass came to me without a scroll so I resolved to fashion a convincing fake. I pulled out all the stops and was pleased with the result. I sold the bass to a nice fellow new to the Houston Symphony letting him know of course that the scroll was a new one. A little less than two years passed and he graciously called me to say he loved the bass but was trading it in for a bigger bass [it was a little delicate]. It went to a very large internationally known shop. Some time went by and I got a call from the then stranger to me Ken Smith. His keen observational skills had noticed that I detailed on my website the construction of the fake and in fact it was listed on this "internationally known expert appraiser's" online archives as a bonafide Dalla Costa with original scroll and was sold as such. Ken found that quite amusing as did I. I am still amazed he figured that out. You might say-well you did a good job and I did, but not that good. A real expert would have known it was a forgery. It is just my opinion that at this time it is not that hard to put over a forgery so anyone contemplating buying an old bass really needs to be aware of this.

[Ken Smith]

I saw earlier the masterful Scroll that Jeff made to fit the 'headless' Bass. I didn't really know Jeff in person back then. When I finally saw it on the other website a year or so later I ran back to Jeff's web and realized that my eyes were not tricking me. It was the same exact Scroll and Bass.

Now, I never saw that Bass in person or the new antiqued Scroll that Jeff made for it. The dealer however that was brokering the Bass did. When I discussed the Bass with Jeff afterwards, he mentioned something that he did that only he and whomever that would examine the Scroll close up would know or find.

Many old Basses from Italy and England often have 'worm' damage. Jeff thought it a good idea to fake some worm holes to make the Scroll more convincing. What he also did was to use a small rattail file to 'dress' the inside of the holes (or something like that but Jeff can correct me). The Rattail file will leave some small file marks 'inside' the worm holes. A close probably magnified inspection would reveal that the worm holes were man-made, not worm-made. That was the ingenious but I would say 'honest' effort Jeff put forth. Those file marks could have been smoothed out and/or distorted to hide the man-made fact and make the Scroll even more convincing even if closely inspected.

Like all the rest of the Scams in the world today we see daily. The Basses as Jeff describes are on the 'menu' for those that want to play that game.

The Bisiach that Jeff mentioned was according to him, a well made Bass and not something you see made everyday. I recently played a later 1946 Martini Bass and I would say that the Bisiach was actually a better sounding and playing Bass. The Martini however being authentic is worth twice the price. My Martini being maybe the oldest example of a Bass from that maker far exceeds the latter Bass as well in performance as well as value. I was happy to have the chance to see and compare an early and late Bass from the same Italian maker. Mine was made just after WWI and the other just after WWII. You can't say that every day of the week now can you?

I bought the Martini from an Italian Dealer as I did the Bisiach as well. One was really Italian and one was really not but was a great Bass regardless. Many of the actual fakes (not just antiqued Gypsy Basses) we have seen have been pretty good Basses. One authority mentioned to me that these Basses if properly labeled would fetch the going rate as many of the better handmade Basses made honestly like those we have seen from makers like Jeff, Arnold, Nick and others. Antiquing a Bass as well as some of them are is no easy task. You might as well do it on a good Bass to make the effort pay off. No one wants a junk Bass just because it looks old. Good is good, antiqued or not. First come the Bass after all.

I have seen (and owned) quite a few antiqued Basses now. Some of them were antiqued to add some old flavor character and some were done up to deceive. The wood inside the deceptive Gypsy Basses are often Acid-washed internally over the fresh new wood. This makes it look naturally oxidized until you scrape some wood away or remove a patch or piece of lining. Then you see this bleach white colored wood revealed like it was cut yesterday. If the Bass is older, then the bright color will fade but the Acid might actually protect the wood or rather prevent it from natural oxidation.