Is this carved or laminated?

Nice one Ken, and accurate too!

Nathan, its easiest to see the short grain of the top and back by looking at the end of the fiddle. If its good wood you'll see the top grain all standing up like llllllllllllllll

 

Look at the worn corners. Does anybody else see a hint of a ply? Maybe I'm imagining things.

 

To my knowledge, there's no such thing as a ply violin. Heaven forbid - it would be totally muffled, NO ring to it. Yuck. Heavy, too.

 

PS - I'm a violinist learning bass. Got a great ply bass from Ideal Music in NYC!

 

Of course there are plywood violins: I played in a high school orchestra full of them, years back. Ken's right about this one, though.

 

Oh, perhaps there's a difference between ply and laminate that I'm confusing. I always assumed they were synonymous.

 

What happened to Ken's posts??

It's hard to learn when the answers have been deleted

 

Hey, I'm new here, so first I should say, "Hi, y'all."

I'm entering a bit late on this but I thought I'd say that the violin is without a doubt a solid wood fiddle, not ply (or laminate). Been fixing them for thirty years now so it's pretty easy to tell, even in a photo.