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Double Bass Help evaluating this bass

Akito

Akito

Dec 1, 2003
1,733
380
Kansas City
#1
Hey guys! I am looking at a pretty old upright on consignment at a local store. I am trying to figure out a way to upload the pics from my phone. The tag inside says mittenwalder and someone's name and los angeles. It has a pickup installed in the bridge. Again I'll post pics asap.
 
#8
That bass looks carved to me. Especially the top. You can easily see the grain in several of the pictures. The back looks carved to my eyes as well.

If you can get it for $1,500, and also have a bass luthier check it out, that's a steal.
 
#11
Jake deVilliers said:
That's a very nice German shop bass from the early fifties or so. If I'd seen it for $1500... :)
Click to expand...

Just what is a "shop bass?" I tried Googling the term but it always thinks I'm shopping for a bass :) Some one suggested that my bass, which looks similar and which I posted pics a few days ago, was a German shop bass. Shop bass as opposed to factory bass? Plywood? Assembly line bass?
My next task will be pics of my no name French "shop bow." :)
 
#12
Mittenwalder Handarbeit means: Made by hand in the german area of Mittenwald. That is in the very south of Germany, near Austria. BUT there is no name of the maker. So I believe it is just another factory "hand" built bass. The tag looks very fresh for an older bass, maybe even someone did a fake....
If you like the sound and it does not have serious damage, 1500 maybe okay....who cares if it is plywood or solid wood as long as it sounds good to you?

Shop bass? Yes, maybe they think of an very old man with a beard who is sitting in his little shop in the dark German woods.
He builds the basses entirely with his own hands. The wood he uses was stored by his grand-grand father in 1885.
All he needs is a saw, a knive, human bone glue, and a secret laquer made from the blood of an alpha wolf.
He builds one double bass in every year, not knowing that he produces some of the greatest instrument that will be very expensive fifty or hundred fifty years later...and now you have the chance to get one of this rare "German Shop Basses" for 1500 Dollars... ;-)
 
#13
That's a lovely picture. The chances that it bears any resemblance to the way this instrument was built are slim.

Picture a medium-sized German factory in the post-WW2 era. A worker takes the wood which is near his bench there and carves a back. If he takes longer than a couple of hours he has the opportunity to seek new employment. The factory produces hundreds of carved basses every year, and many more plywood basses. There might be someone in the factory who has built a complete bass.

Lots of them sound pretty good. A few sound really good.

Some of the tops cave in, like the top in this pic.

Oh - I forgot. At the factory the pecking-order is that the master luthiers work almost exclusively on violins. Behind their backs they refer to the bass-builders as "the carpenters."

Carry on . . .
 
#15
Sam, thanks for straightening out what a shop bass is. You got there before I did. Al Lever, welcome to Talkbass! How 'bout filling out your profile so that we can get to know you a bit better?
 
#17
No, it is in the extreme south of Germany, Bavaria, not in the east (like Markneukirchen, famous for instruments) Mittenwald means: in the middle of the forrest. How do you call it: Hillbilly? Backwoods?
Very nice place for holidays and I am sure it is what you might call a typical German landscape.
So let us hope the old man is still sitting there in the middle of nothing, making his basses.
 
#19
Al Lever said:
Mittenwalder Handarbeit means: Made by hand in the german area of Mittenwald. That is in the very south of Germany, near Austria. BUT there is no name of the maker. So I believe it is just another factory "hand" built bass. The tag looks very fresh for an older bass, maybe even someone did a fake....
If you like the sound and it does not have serious damage, 1500 maybe okay....who cares if it is plywood or solid wood as long as it sounds good to you?

Shop bass? Yes, maybe they think of an very old man with a beard who is sitting in his little shop in the dark German woods.
He builds the basses entirely with his own hands. The wood he uses was stored by his grand-grand father in 1885.
All he needs is a saw, a knive, human bone glue, and a secret laquer made from the blood of an alpha wolf.
He builds one double bass in every year, not knowing that he produces some of the greatest instrument that will be very expensive fifty or hundred fifty years later...and now you have the chance to get one of this rare "German Shop Basses" for 1500 Dollars... ;-)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the colorful description. For a moment I thought you were writing about bow makers. And we all know that's exactly how they are made :D
But, back to reality: Sam's description is more on line with what I suspected. To my untrained, non-luthier eye, these basses all look the same. If you check out the postings of my bass's pics "Yet Another Identity" from August 10 they seem very similar to Akito's bass. Did these "shops" have a set of plans or blueprints that they shared? Also, some of the "extras" like the ebony strips at the neck joint or the double (carved) purfling (on my bass) and intricate button designs seem to belie Sam's contention that they were rushed through a mill.
Thanks to both of you for the info.
 
#20
Sam appears to be confusing the violin making shops of Markneukirchen and Mittenwald with the assembly line floors at Saginaw and Dearborn.

The towns where the violin factories were located were smaller places, usually with a Guild that regulated who could and couldn't be an instrument maker.

In the way of small towns, you wouldn't just chop a guy because he was a little slower than someone else, you'd find a more suitable task for him because he was your neighbour or your brother-in-law's nephew or whatever.
 

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