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Where i can get a db valued and restored ?


fiatcoupe432
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Hi guys , just thinking on buying a db . The bass is been sold by one of my neighbors and is a German 1880 , can't tell you more about it as I haven't seen it live yet but only on photos . 

As I'm not a db player I would only buy it to restore it and then resell it at a very reasonable price . I'll attach some photos ....

any advice welcome , I know there is lots of db geeks on here ;/) 

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Bristol Violin shop and Cremona House Violins in Bristol do double bass repairs but I don't personally know of anywhere closer to South Devon.

Martin Penning in a good shout or try searching for string instrument shops in Devon or Cornwall?

Even if they can't do the work, they should be able to tell you what work needs doing.

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Martin Penning is a double bass legend. 

To give you some idea of cost, an overhaul of my functional bass (neck reset, new bridge, new tailpiece, rebuilt tuners, new soundpost etc.) was £500. And that was with Martin generously doing some work for free because he’s just a thoroughly lovely man.

Cosmetic improvements will be expensive and unless this bass is a rare one or built by a named and in demand luthier it’s not going to be economically viable.

this looks like a very effective get poor quick scheme. 

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I thought Plywood too.  Why is that?  It's evidently real wood from the directional cracks up the front.  Probably quite old from the hat-peg tuners.  Also probably a REALLY bad idea.  A dealer with a workshop might make something of it via a thorough restoration or could at least re-use the ebony finger-board on something else.  Not one for a private buyer.

Saw a hieronymus amati bass at a dealer once; looked like lots of glued together matchwood; now considered priceless beyond valuation..  SO, you never know ... but this surely aint no amati.

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There's something about the finish, the contours and proportions that just say "60s Czech plywood" to me.

Oh, and by the way, there is a great deal of debate - to put it mildly - whether Hieronymous Amati ever made any double basses. The Karr - Koussevitsky bass (which I have played!) has been dated to after H Amati's death, and that was claimed for years to be the only existing Amati bass. If anyone were to try to sell a bass as an Amati, they would have to have utterly bomb-proof provenance. To my knowledge, such a thing doesn't exist.

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Not the Karr-Koussevitsky (once "attributed to" Antonio and Girolamo Amati according to Wikipedia).  but THIS one (by Girolamo Amati aka Hieronymus II Amati, about 100 years later). 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_II_double_bass

image.png.5e869163c4e095e73909e29234707abd.png

Roger Hargrave and Rene Zaal made a copy of it a few years ago https://maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/328014-making-a-double-bass/  (fantastic blog for anyone with an interest in bass making) and they don't seem to doubt it's genuine.

Whether or not the decrepit bass I saw at Gallery Strings in 1988 really was this one prior to renovation, I honestly don't know; but it sold for a "significant sum" they wouldn't reveal.   So what is apparently matchwood CAN be very valuable ... but usually is NOT!!

Dealers do love the phrase "Attributed to"!

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Back on topic.  VERY hard to tell much from the photos; the vertical cracks running down from one of the f-holes are indicative of a carved front; I don't think plywood cracks that way unless someone's taken a hammer to it;  but it doesn't look right somehow.  Some things need to be touched to tell what they're made of!   This one to be left well alone.  More and fresher fish in the sea. :¬)

 

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The words "attributed to" in my book almost always mean "there is absolutely no proof to this assertion, but I want the Fairy Dust of a Cremonese maker, and the scroll looks vaguely right"

I'm sure it's a magnificent bass, and worth a lot of money just for that. Amati though? Who knows? And if you don't know, don't claim it.

Gary Karr's bass, now thought to be French, was amazing, but REALLY hard to play...

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The replica is also an amazing bass and a splendid work of art.  IMHO it's a real shame they "antiqued" it as personally I'd rather own a bass like one that had just come from Amati's workshop rather than a replica of a damaged one (as if, even were I a millionaire who could afford such, I would not do 1% justice to anything that good!!!!).  My own bass doesn't need antiquing, it has lots of its very own - and took a mere 150 years to acquire it.

The Czech / German,  carved/plywood monstrosity has been antiqued rather too much methinks, even if it is quite old.

 

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