“I like old things,” Tee told me when he brought his violin by for me to see it.
“I found this thing up at the flea market,” he said. “Man wanted $25 for it. It looked old and in pretty good shape, so I asked him if he would take 10. “
“Finally the man said OK. So I gave him the money, he handed it to me.”
“I hadn’t even got back to my truck,” Tee continued, “before a fellow came up, wanted to look at my fiddle. So I handed it to him.”
“He held it up, and plucked the strings.”
“What you want for it?” he asked.
“I hadn’t planned to sell it,” Tee said. “I just like the way it looks, you know, old and all.”
But when the man pulled out five $20 bills, Tee handed the violin to him.
“I hated I sold that fiddle as soon as I did it,” Tee said. “But about six weeks later the same man came up to me at the flea market and wanted to sell it back. I bought it, but now every time he sees me he wants to buy it again.”
Tee handed his fiddle to me.
“Tell me what it’s worth,” he said.
The violin had an amber color, with a homemade bone bridge to hold up the strings, three homemade pegs, and one factory made, and three rusty strings.
I held the violin to the light and peeked inside.
“The sound post has fallen out.”
Tee looked in to see a dot inside where the post had sat.
“It makes the high strings sound out,” I said. “But it holds the top up, too.”
I paused.
“If you play without the sound post, the string pressure could crack the top.”
I looked; the top was not cracked.
There was no bow in the old wooden case, so I took one of mine, and drew it across the strings. The violin’s voice was sweet, and hinted that it could be strong. Its amber color bespoke age, while the quality of the wood indicated its expense. The spruce in the top had grown slowly, for its grain lines were thin and close together. The curl in the two-piece back was prominent, the pieces joined together so perfectly, that they looked like herringbone made from maple wood.
I peeked through the bass-side sound-hole to see a professionally printed label, but I didn’t take time to read it. “Ninety percent of all violin labels claim to be ‘Stradivari’s,” I said, “but 95 percent of the claims are false.”
I chuckled.
“But if this violin is as old as I think,” I continued, “the top’s been taken off.” I said. “And there will be a signature…”
I paused.
“I can make out a name.”
“C.E. Pamel,” I continued. ”Written in ink. ”
“How does that name affect what the violin’s worth?” Tee asked.
“The owner cared enough about his violin to have a professional repair it.” I said. “And the repairman cared enough about his work to sign his name to it.”
I bowed the violin again.
“I like this fiddle, Tee,” I said. “Sell it to me.”
“I can’t,” Tee answered. “I sold it once, but got a chance to buy it back. I don’t want to sell it again.”
He paused, “I can’t play it, but I want to see if I can fix it.”
“So what do you think it’s worth?” he continued.
“Well I’d give 200 for it,” I said. “And I know it’s worth more than that.”
Tee took his violin home. Six or eight months passed before I thought of it again. Then one day the thought came to call Tee right away, and convince him to sell me that violin.
“I want to buy that fiddle,” I said, after “Hello, Tee.”
“What’ll you give me for it?”
“I said I’d give you $200 for it.”
Tee paused. “Well, I still haven’t decided if I want to sell it.”
“Did you work on it?”
“No,“ he chuckled. “Just stuck it under the bed.”
He paused. “Let me call you in two or three days. I can tell you if I’m ready to sell it then.”
“How about just two?”
“I’ll call you in two days,” he said. He did, saying if I wanted to pay him $200 he would sell it to me.
I drove to his house to pick it up.
“I wasn’t ever going to do anything with it,” he said, after we closed the deal. “Now what do you think it‘s worth?”
“Well it’s worth at least what I just paid you,“ I smiled. “And more. I just don’t know how much more.“
After I brought the violin home, I discovered it had a number of problems. The fingerboard stood so low above the violin’s belly that a standard height violin bridge might never fit. The top was separating from the sides near the neck joint, and needed re-gluing. There was a tiny peg holding the back where it attached to the neck, and another peg holding the finger board. Even so, I still believed that the old violin was special. I got a flashlight and took another look at the C.E. Pamel’s handwriting inside. This time I found a date I had missed before, faded in places, but readable as “Aug. 22, 1916.”
“Good deal,” I thought as I did the subtraction. It had been 102 years and five months since C.E. Pamel repaired it. Since well cared for violins don’t need repair very soon or very often, this one might be much older.
Next I paid attention to the professionally printed label, which read:
F—d Aug.Glass Verfertigt nach
Antonius Straduarius Fies
Fabrikat in Cremona 1731
The label was in German, with two letters of the maker’s abbreviated first name missing. I looked up German violin makers to find that Friedrich Augustus Glass I built violins in Klingenthal, Germany, as early as 1790. His son Friedrich II built violins there between 1830 and 1860. Many of them were shipped to the United States. The Smithsonian described their work as “quite good and somewhat above the commercial’ class.” So, it may be that this violin came from the hand, or the factory of Friedrich II. But the only sample Glass labels I could find were handwritten. So the Glass copy of a Strad might be only a copy of a Glass.
So what will a violin’s label tell you? Not much that you can depend on, without any history of ownership — provenance — as the violin shops call it. And the only history I have is the repairman’s signature and date. But now and then a label may say more. This one’s paper has browned with age and has suffered some damage. It may be translated as follows, with important words in boldface.
Freidrich August Glass manufactured according to
Antonius Stradivarius Dirty Trick
Built in Cremona 1731
I was amazed that the violin maker used “dirty trick” to describe his work. I tried to find a more attractive translation, but I could not; only synonyms like “mean,” “obnoxious” and “cruel,” and a diminutive form which means “illegitimate.” If these definitions are correct, the maker is presenting his violin as nothing more than a poor Strad copy. A label written in German, a violin not made in Cremona, Italy, in 1731 but in Klingenthal, Germany, some time later. The label also says not only was the maker a man of scrupulous honesty, he also had a sense of humor.
His violin attracts attention, as we three recent buyers know. Its maker’s label is honest to the point of self-deprecation. The repairman’s date tells us the violin has been appreciated for at least 102 years.
At this point, I think the violin has one other thing to tell me. It’s voice, when I hear it, will probably say, “I can sing, and touch hearts, and I can laugh too.”
I’d like that, very much. I can’t wait until I can tell Tee.