This forum has been FANTASTIC in helping me with a Martin Uke and Bently guitar that I picked up at garage sales.
Well, this time I found a violin, such that it is. I rescued it from a lady who painted it, tied a bow around it, and hung it on the wall. The front edge, sound holes, and peg head have been painted gold. Also, it is missing some parts, but I believe it’s a reproduction of a Joseph Guarnerius. It has a label inside that reads “Joseph Guarnerius fecit Cremonae anno 1724 IHS”. There’s also another label inside the other sound hole that reads “Germany”. I’ve read online that many reproductions were made in Germany, so that leads me to believe it’s one of those reproductions.
I hope a proper luthier answers your question. I don’t know enough …
But still … it looks in surprisingly good nick to me. But it would take quite a bit of money to do it up, and it’s questionable whether it would be worth it. I reckon (until someone more knowledgeable chimes in) that it’s a German factory copy made probably in the first or second decade of the twentieth century. Just a quick search on the net showed some sites selling these things for as much as $4,000. But, unless it’s an exceptional instrument, you’d be foolish to pay that much. Others, repaired, fully set up and in good condition, generally go for about $500 - $700.
I can’t quite tell from the picture, but it looks to me as if the fingerboard is not ebony, but dyed black. To me, that implies that it wasn’t intended as a ‘high-end’ instrument (again, pace someone with more knowledge). What I do know is that some German factory fiddles were intended to be good quality instruments, others were basically knocked out along with thousands of others. Most of them work pretty well when done up, but don’t justify the expense of doing them up in terms of their eventual value.
I hope now that someone better comes in here and says ‘No, nonsense, it’s a great fiddle and will only cost you $2.50 to do up’. Hmmm …
Oh, and the “IHS”? That was the stamp used by Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri (1698 - 1744), who was known as ‘Del Gesu’ as a result (or whose fiddles were given that name).
It’s interesting that he would use that particular stamp, as it is most definitely a Christogram, and virtually identical to the one used on liturgical vessels. Dedicating his work to the Lord, no doubt. Actually, I have a whistle on which I had a Christogram engraved as well, for that very reason.
I think it was probably the usual things: part dedication, part statement (like putting a fish in the rear window of your car) and part thanks for the gift of being to create such beautiful objects. After all, these days, Del Gesu is commonly regarded by players as the maker of the most beautiful, playable violins ever, his violins even oustripping in many people’s opinion the work of Stradivari. He was pretty much regarded like that even in his lifetime. We have not seen remotely close to his like since.
It clearly says Germany on the label, so that’s where it was made. Germany cranked out thousands, maybe millions of these things starting in the late 1800s. When it comes to cheap fiddles, today’s China is yesterday’s Deutchland.
Your particular fiddle is either late 1800s or early 1900s. The value is in direct proportion to its playability and quality of sound.
