Violin Forum/Message Board

[MANFIO]

The Chinese Barrier will block many good young makers of entering the market... Many many good makers, such as Rocca, Scarampella, and many others (that are quite good but made little money when they lived) would have to change profession if they lived today, it would be impossible to them competing with Chinese makers.
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[jethro]

Seems strange that many makers have a fake maker name which is
German or French or Itallian but their instruments are really made by
chinese apprentaces . And now, us in America, the country who had
made the finest engineered products in the world, have to use fake chinese names to "convince" the shallow buyers that our products are
superior ! Perhaps we could start the rumor that we are American
apprentaces living in china- subsisting on chicken bones from the
trash cans of wealthy chinese capitalists while eeking out a subsistance
in a violin sweat shop ......... of coarse this is parody...... but not
100% though !

I have been considering ways to eliminate some of the useless carving
which does not need to be done by hand. I may try to build a sort
of "duplicator" to rough out the excess wood on the outside of the
plates. There are lots of other areas where you really can't do by
machine at all (like the neck) If I could get the plates roughed out
80 % of the way on the outside that would save several days !
I also need to develop a better way of cutting the purfling - at least
the parts not near the corners. I have looked at the little jigs others
have developed but none seem to really hit the spot as far as being
slip and goof proof enough.

On repairing at the same time as making ........ I get the feeling
that there are many who went down that road and that as time passed
they did more repair and less making untill one day a couple of years
later they couldn't remember even making an instrument ................
I don't want that to be me !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ( I don't have anything
against making!)

How about a 3 day a week job doing repaies for a shop and the balance
making for myself ???????????????????????????????????????????????
And Yes, I do believe in the Easter bunny !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is time to take back OUR economy from the chinese !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But how ????? Big Brother has engineered what we have now ! (sigh)

[sdantonio]

Two tricks to selling more instruments that I have learned over the years,

1. As odd as it sounds, raise your prices and you will sell more. If you have an instrument in your shop marked $2,000 and another marked $3,000, there is a psychological component that will make people choose the $3,000 one as being the better of the two when asked to choose.

2. Musician are addicts (this had a different meaning when I was growing up in the 60's of course). Lend him the instrument... "no, I'm really not trying to sell it to you, I just want your opinion on the sound quality... here take it home for a month...). Wait 2 months or so and give him a call and say you need it back to show to a customer. By then he will be hooked and will morgage his house or sell his wife to keep it.

Of course, neither is 100% foolproof. The most notable case where #2 didn't work was a 22 inch upright viola my teacher made that Yo-Yo Ma ran around with for about 1.5 years. He recorded an album with it, then gave it back saying after all those years playing cello he just couldn't get passed how weird such a small instrument looked.

As the great Chineese philosopher and luthier Lu Man Fio said, expect to make most of your money in repairs. In my case, the lutherie will be my retirement supplimental income (in about 15 years when I retire).

Steven