KC Strings newsletter and award

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

There was a thread earlier today about a error on their newsletter regarding an award for tone on one of Anton's basses. Although Richard Williams occasionally posts on TBDB, I know that they don't spend much time here and I thought they should have the opportunity to clear up the matter so I called Anton Krutz let him know his Newsletter error had made a big splash here on our forum.
He told me that Upton had contacted them yesterday or the day before to question their claim of a Gold Medal award at ISB and that they were in the process of correcting the Newsletter to accurately reflect the award. He appreciates Upton bringing this to his attention and immediately asked his webmaster to correct the error; sadly, things take time. Throwing this out on the 'net didn't bring about the correction as it was already in the works. The correct information is now right on their home page. Scroll down about half way down:
http://kcstrings.com/

I believe the situation is a misunderstanding between Anton (owner), his staff and the webmaster. FWIW, I played that particular bass in the shop when it came back from ISB just before it went to it's new owner in Texas. I was told then that Anton was very proud of the instrument and mentioned that it won an award for tone. He never mentioned Gold Medal at that time. I remember thinking that $24K was a lot of money, but the instrument delivered the goods. Beautiful bass all the way and it only had a few hours (at most) of playing in.

I surely hope there was no inference that KC Strings doesn't make and sell instruments of very high quality. If so, the Moscow State Symphony may be disappointed with 8 of Anton's creations.

Lest there be any question, I will say that I don't work and have never worked for KC Strings. I have paid full price on all purchases and heartily recommend them whenever I can. Those who have been around here for a while may remember that I also owned an Upton bass for awhile which I traded for a KC Strings bass (3x the price) and the Upton was/is a fine bass.

Personally, I thought it would have been better if Anton or other staff at the shop made this clarification, but he preferred not to directly get involved. He has a business to run and instruments to make, after all.

[wayne holmes]

i would just like to second what was said about Anton's instruments- We should all be proud of anyone in our bass community who produces instruments of the highest quality and who is so involved in developing musicians.

[RCWilliams]

To all bass makers and players, I apologize. An error was made in a news letter which was sent out with an erroneous claim. I found out about it as I was about to leave cell phone range in rural Missouri. I have been unable to access the web to post on this subject due to lack of web service until this evening.

As yet I have not seen the offending letter, they don't have me on the mailing list, but I understand an error was made with regard to what award was bestowed upon Anton's bass which he entered into the ISB competition. What we were awarded was a certificate of merit for tone. please understand, we are neither naive nor foolish enough to think we could get away with such a false claim as a gold medal for tone, we all know that doesn't even exist.

K. C. Strings will be establishing a policy of making certain at least one of the owners reads all such material in the future. we all spend far too much establishing reputations to throw them away for silly reasons.

Again, I apologize to all for our error in our news letter, and will work to make certan it never happens again.

Rick Williams
Co-owner K. C. Strings

[Martin Sheridan]

I worked for KC Strings for a couple of years and have been connected with them in a casual business relationship for ten years or longer. I know all of the owners personally and I feel totally confident in telling all of you that they would not intentionally give out false information like that.
These are good people. Let no one get carried away with false criticism.
best,