Would certainly appreciate y'all giving your opinions on where this might have been made and when. A fair price? Thanks
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Double Bass Bass info please
- Thread starter HughFosterWood
- Start date
If it is what the seller says it is, the price is about right. No comment on the origin...the gears are French and old but about the rest I don't know.
Yeah, French tuners, but the body looks Hungarian-ish.
Hugh, my judgement on a bass from a few pics is not reliable at all, nevertheless some comments:
- at that time (around 1850, in central Europe), metal pegs were rare; wood was the norm. It's difficult to see, but the pegbox shows some signs of work; these French-style tuners may have replaced the original ones somewhere in the quoted 170 years.
- On these pics, the body looks remarkably clean & shiny, and no cracks are visible. This is uncommon for an instrument of such age, and raises questions. How does it look on the inside, how does it smell on the inside, are there any cracks, is it re-finished, ...?
- In the central Europe of those days, roundbacks existed, but flatbacks were the norm, certainly at this sort of price point. It's another thing that doesn't make sense to me. And I can't see any seams, wood structure, purfling, recurve, ... either in the back. (From what I can see from the pic it might as well be 7YO ply.)
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Hey thanks! You guys are great. Yeah-- it does look too new to be that old.
Have you seen it in person? That's where I would start... He said he purchased it in Uruguay, it could be a Germanic body with a french neck, some Frankenstein work. If it is and it sounds good I don't really see a problem. Bring someone who knows a thing or two about these basses, maybe your friendly neighborhood luthier?
It's now on eBay with a more fleshed out description. The seller claims he brought it to AES for appraisal and was told it is a composite instrument...German made beech neck, French gears and a locally made corpus of South American woods.
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