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ollieken
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Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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Location: New Brunswick Canada

PostPosted: Wed Nov 22, 2017 4:29 pm    Post subject: saxon Reply with quote

On a lot of post on M S forum when asked to I D a violin & the reply
Is a Saxon Orgin violin what dose that mean ?

Another thing that I wonder is when Strad made violins it was likely
wood cut from very old trees & he made them to work with gut strings
now we try to make them sound like strads with different kind of strings
Now if I could get an answer about this I can stop scratching my head
& not get anymore splinters in my fingers Thank`s ken
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Dave Chandler
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 23, 2017 12:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Saxon = German

To my understanding, Antonio used failrly contemporary wood, like modern makers.
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Michael Darnton
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 23, 2017 5:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The reason they say Saxon that description encompasses most of the Germanic violin "factories" of the 1800s, including some that wouldn't be in Germany, specifically. And the reason that's the answer so often is because that's the area that the greatest quantity/proportion of existing violins were made. China is quickly catching up, if they haven't already, so in 200 years the obvious snap answer to "where was it made?" will be ""probably China. . . or maybe it's Saxon." :-)

The Germans were at one point around 1900 importing 30,000 violins a year into the US. In the same time the Italians accounted for something like 600, annually. A friend of mine once added up all of the golden-period Cremonese violins he could imagine in existence currently, and came up with a number something like certainly fewer than 2000.
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ollieken
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2017 9:51 am    Post subject: saxon Reply with quote

Dave Michael Thank you for the reply

I see a lot of copy`s of strad from different countries around here
I think most have come from old catalog`s & some are well made & sound good to me anyway . ken
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Michael Darnton
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2017 10:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

We like to disparage the old factory instruments because they're often crude inside where you can't see--graduation with a gouge, carved out bass bars, blocks lacking--but the people who made them were skilled, and some of these instruments can be externally very attractive. If the model used was fundamentally proper, once set up properly, the good ones can certainly sound fine.
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Rick M
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2017 5:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just for fun, from a 1909 T. Eaton's catologue (Canada's version of Sears) courtesy Canadian Archives.

These guys, the catalogues, were the Amazon of their day. I assume this is the source for many (most) of the ones we see today that Ken's talking about.

For reference, average worker income in those days was about $30 per month.

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ollieken
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Location: New Brunswick Canada

PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2017 9:30 pm    Post subject: saxon Reply with quote

Thank you rick for the pic . I have a friend that has two old Catologue
Reproduced made up of the days when a dollar would buy you a lot
but was hard to come by. I worked 7 Days a week for $10 & my board
1500 miles from home work or starve not like today .
Good old days get up in the morning out to the outhouse & read Eatons
Catologue at 25.fh below zero you did not read many pages ha ha
I have My first fiddle (1968) from Eatons $ 100 dollars right Michael made in china sorry Maybe this stories should be posted in another forum Ken


Last edited by ollieken on Sat Nov 25, 2017 6:14 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Dave Chandler
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 24, 2017 9:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting to keep in mind that the industrial revolution took us from aggrarian to urban cultures, and those of the "old world" that came to the "new world" during that time brought with them ideals of success that included a home in town, a regular paycheck, and children that learned to make music, often violin and piano. Rapidly expanding market here, high demand for the better things in life. Yeah, Kinda like the demand for I-phones today.

Also, in 1600 the world encompassed about 500 million souls, now about 7 billion, that's 14 times as many people. If there weren't enough Strads to go around in 1600, it is now 14 times rarer, good news for us!

China was estimated at 1.2 billion in year 2000, and now estimated at 1.4 billion or more, that's an increase of 200 million. Most are moving (again) from agragrian villages to industrial and urban locations, more contact with western music, and again, a demand children to learn music of all sorts. The big question, do they absorb most of the violin production of their own industry? Or will these early Chinese instruments get reimported as antiques? What impact on the demand in China for western made instruments? Interesting question.
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Michael Darnton
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2017 12:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have always joked that the center of the violin world has been constantly moving west for hundreds of years--from Italy, to France, to England, across to the US, then over to Japan, Korea, and China in that order. In that vein, I am predicting the next boom in violin making will be in India, then a few more countries east of India over a couple of hundred years, and that eventually the center will once again hover over Italy, coming from the east.
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Rick M
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2017 1:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I read up on this quite a bit last year, but this article does a good job of explaining some of the back story.

http://www.ifshinviolins.com/Articles/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1061/The-Mystery-of-Origin

By the way Ken, I have similar memories of the old Eaton's catalogues. But if we go much further we'll likely be asked to NOT share anymore!! Smile
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ollieken
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2017 6:32 pm    Post subject: Rick Reply with quote

Thank you rick Interesting link, answers to a lot of things that I
always wondered about where all the violin`s were made & how they came into this part of the country . I often thought that merchant ship may
have brought some here as well . Ken
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Franciscus
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Location: Tuzla, Bosnia

PostPosted: Tue Dec 05, 2017 1:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Michael Darnton wrote:
We like to disparage the old factory instruments because they're often crude inside where you can't see--graduation with a gouge, carved out bass bars, blocks lacking--but the people who made them were skilled, and some of these instruments can be externally very attractive. If the model used was fundamentally proper, once set up properly, the good ones can certainly sound fine.

I have, right now, one of them, opened. 3/4 from Markneukirchen/Schonbach, with the inside of the top just like you described. But, measuring the thickness of the top between the bottom of the channels made by gouge and the top surface, one could find that the graduation lays within the ballpark. I opened it because of the unglued neck block and after a little scraping of the hills of gauge's traces (without the bass bar replacing game), I think I could finish with rather usable instrument for some young artist.
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