Reinhold Herold Bass

[Don Cox]

Is anyone familiar with this maker or his Basses ?
The only thing I can find on him is from the Contrabass Shoppe website in the "Quality Basses " section.
Apparently he made Basses in Germany circa 1840 or so.

Any information would be appreciated.

thanks.
Don

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Don Cox

Is anyone familiar with this maker or his Basses ?
The only thing I can find on him is from the Contrabass Shoppe website in the "Quality Basses " section.
Apparently he made Basses in Germany circa 1840 or so.

Any information would be appreciated.

thanks.
Don

Why are you asking? It is just a commercial style Germanic Bass. Do you think it's worth $35-36k?

We see basses like this all the time with no names in them selling from $6-12k. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Anything German for over $20-25K is a push and better be an awesome sounding 'OLD' Bass in healthy condition with the highest level professional repairs.

On this maker, I found 16 Herold's in Germany working in the 19th and 20th centuries. 'Henley' does not list a date. 'Elgar' says 19th century. 'Jalovec' says 20th century maker of Basses for 'Reinhold'. Several members of the family are listed as Bass or Bass and Cello makers. That Bass does look more modern than old to me so early 20th century would be my guess. Not everything listed in Elgar is correct. The Jalovec is a huge book by volume and I have the 'German $ Austrian Makers' as well as the 2-set Encyclopedia. The Elgar book is more of a hobby handbook in comparison to the bigger violin books used by professional dealers. If the data quoted by Elgar is not confirmed by the bigger volumes or contradicted then it is reasonable to doubt his claims. Two of the Labels pictured by this family do not have dates, just the name. Maybe the date was just an erroneous guess by Elgar or he listed the wrong member of the family. Now that a shop has one with his name in it, they pick the least reliable source of loosely written information to make their listing! A quick look at the more reliable Jalovec volumes would paint a more accurate picture.

Looks like a shop-style produced Bass to my eye.

[Don Cox]

Hi Ken, thanks for your reply and thoughts.

No, that listing seems a little overpriced to me - but then, I don't know of the maker or his reputation.

Why I ask is, one of the local Symphony bassists has bought a new bass and has her Reinhold Herold for sale.
It's a decent sounding Bass and appears to be in good shape.
It's somewhat different from the one pictured on the Contrabass Shoppe website.
Different proportions, violin corners, bigger - more of a 7/8 size.
She's asking $17,000.00 Canadian for it.
Since I may be in the market for a Bass I thought it might be worth researching.

The only info I could find on the maker was on the Contrabass Shoppes website and I thought that since there are people on this forum with a ton of reference material, and a lot more knowledge that I, it wouldn't hurt to ask.

Good Basses are hard to come by in this part of the world.
Once in a while the local Bass guru ( Jim Ham ) gets one in for restoration and we all go over and drool on it, but other than that.......

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Don Cox

Hi Ken, thanks for your reply and thoughts.

No, that listing seems a little overpriced to me - but then, I don't know of the maker or his reputation.

Why I ask is, one of the local Symphony bassists has bought a new bass and has her Reinhold Herold for sale.
It's a decent sounding Bass and appears to be in good shape.
It's somewhat different from the one pictured on the Contrabass Shoppe website.
Different proportions, violin corners, bigger - more of a 7/8 size.
She's asking $17,000.00 Canadian for it.
Since I may be in the market for a Bass I thought it might be worth researching.

The only info I could find on the maker was on the Contrabass Shoppes website and I thought that since there are people on this forum with a ton of reference material, and a lot more knowledge that I, it wouldn't hurt to ask.

Good Basses are hard to come by in this part of the world.
Once in a while the local Bass guru ( Jim Ham ) gets one in for restoration and we all go over and drool on it, but other than that.......

Be careful as $17k is not cheap. This is a commercial type generic German Bass. Juzek is on the lower side of the fully carved German shop-Bass scale and Pfretzschner and Morelli are higher up and older usually. This looks to be 20th century to me from what I can see and what I have read. These shop type Basses rarely have dates in them. I would put this on the higher end. Condition is very important as repairs can run more than the value of a bass like this. Sound is key but condition is budget.