The violin maker of my violin does not exist?
I own a violin that's over a hundred years old, which I also actively play. Inside the violin is a sticker with the inscription "JC Schmidt, Fürth (Bavaria)" and, on the sticker, handwritten: "Repaired 1912."
I don't know whether violin maker Schmidt repaired the violin at that time, or whether the violin maker who repaired it immortalized himself anonymously ("repaired 1912").
Now the real question:
Who is JC Schmidt?
I scoured the internet for hours, even days, and read through directories of violin makers from the past few centuries, but I NEVER found the name. My violin maker (who restored the violin) said the note was authentic, but couldn't provide any more specific information.
I would be very happy if someone could give a direct answer to the question or even just recommend a website or something where one can look something like this up.
LG and thanks in advance
Desperate violinist looking for answers
PS: Sorry, that's my bad sense of humor (the "desperate violinist looking for answers")
(3 votes)
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The violin maker is J. Christoph Schmidt, who lived from 1853 until 8 February 1918. I guess he died in World War I. He probably repaired the Geige anno in 1912 himself because it was so common at the time to have the violins repaired personally by the violin maker.
In 1886 he opened his Geigenbauer business. He tried to change the shape of his violins, in which he bent the frames and brought them on the violin curved outward.
Wow, how do you know that?
Sponge of the Internet. 😅
5 minutes internet search. Here is the whole article about him:
Schmidt, J.Christoph. — Fürth. Born 1853, f 8 Febr. 1918 He founded his business as a string instrument maker in 1886 and made attempts, among other things, to change the shape of the violin by bending the frames and bulging outwards.
Hm. I entered the name with Google and first appeared this link:
https://dn790003.ca.archive.org/0/items/diegeigenundlaut02lt/diegeigenundlaut02lt.pdf
Then you have to roll down until Chrissie Schmidt… 😅
Uuuuund… I don’t understand that with the fences… The only difference to other violins is that the body of my violin in the upper half is a little box-shaped. And she is definitely the loudest violin in the orchestra.
Do you know how much the violin is worth? Bzw’s name somehow changes the value or something? Only for interest. Would never sell my treasure.
Did you look for the Darknet? 😅😂
I could never find that… Which browser or search engine did you use?
In 1912 there was no internet yet.
You can ask the state archive of Fürth whether they know something about such a violin maker.
Then the history students have something to do.
Thank you, I’ll see what can be done. And the Internet directories were just photographed pages from real archives. I realize there was no internet 😂.
(I can understand why this state of knowledge starts today 👍)
This is such a cheap violin, which in Geigenbauerkreis is also often referred to as “Böhmische Bumsfiedel”. This is because in the 19th In Bohemia these “instruments” were produced by mass and thrown onto the market for relatively small money. In principle, these were the predecessors of today’s eBay and Amazon violins from China.