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Instruction, Information & Inspiration for Players of Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass & Fiddle | Mar. 3, 2010

Understanding the Label Inside Grandpa’s Old Violin

It often comes as a surprise to learn how unreliable that paper label pasted inside your instrument can be in identifying an instrument’s maker, age, and place of origin. “Labels are as changeable as a pair of shoes,” quips Kerry Keane of Christie’s auction house. Though label fraud is nearly as old as the violin business, the vast majority of confusion results from the labeling of “trade” instruments mass-produced by anonymous makers during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

According to Richard Ward of Ifshin Violins in Berkeley, California, about seven million bowed instruments were exported from the town of Markneukirchen, Germany, alone between 1880 and 1914. These instruments might bear the label of the master maker in charge of the workshop, the business that exported them, the shop that imported and sold them, or an entirely made-up brand name. Most bore a label that included the name of a famous maker. Countless people have experienced that moment of hope, peering inside the f-hole of a family heirloom and recognizing the name of a famous Italian maker: “Stradivarius,” “Guarnerius,” or, less often, Amati, Maggini, or the Tyrolean Stainer.

These labels were not intended to deceive. Names, real and made-up, were a marketing tool—not to reflect a certain maker’s work but simply to create a sort of cachet, an association, in the mind of the buyer. Who today would walk up to a row of brand new student violins labeled Stradivarius and mistake them for originals? Often the famous names reflected the maker used as a model—sometimes quite loosely. My first violin, handed down from great-grandpa, was labeled Amati, despite its flattish arching characteristic of a much later-style instrument.

By Erin Shrader

Learn more about identifying and appraising instruments from Erin Shrader in Strings magazine. Every month, the experts cover the history of bowed-stringed instruments as well as all the latest developments in the violin-making industry. Expand your knowledge of your favorite instrument with a subscription to the magazine designed especially for you. Order it now, and save over forty dollars this year.

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