The 5 Dominant Families Of Scotland

[OC Richard]

every violin is an antique and a genuine Stradivarius

I have my grandfather's fiddle, it has one of those Stradivarius labels in it.

I found out that back in the 1920s those were made in Chicago and sold for $24...a dozen.

What it was, if you signed up for violin lessons with one of the itinerant violin teachers you pre-paid for a certain number of lessons and the violin was included in the price.

They made and distributed thousands of those $2 Strads, and 9 times out of 10 if you come across an old violin in an antique shop it's one of those.

every spinning wheel is from 1800 (or earlier)

I never heard of the spinning wheel thing, that's funny.

[Katia]

I have my grandfather's fiddle, it has one of those Stradivarius labels in it.

I found out that back in the 1920s those were made in Chicago and sold for $24...a dozen.

What it was, if you signed up for violin lessons with one of the itinerant violin teachers you pre-paid for a certain number of lessons and the violin was included in the price.

They made and distributed thousands of those $2 Strads, and 9 times out of 10 if you come across an old violin in an antique shop it's one of those.

Many makers "copied" Stradivari (or sometimes Guarneri, or Amati, or Stainer, etc.) The labels of some don't actually have the "copy of..." bit. And some don't have a maker's label in addition to the "Stradivarius" label. I suppose you can't blame a person who doesn't know better for getting excited...

[OC Richard]

There's actually a Strad-like thing in the Highland piping world.

If you went back to the time of Stradivarius there would have been dozens of makers, yet every old violin is imagined to be a Strad.

With the Highland pipes it's Henderson. If you go back to the 1890-1920 period there was a large number of pipe makers, yet every old bagpipe is imagined to be a Henderson.

Old pipes that look nothing like Hendersons, old pipes that were made before Peter Henderson was born, they're all imagined to be Hendersons.

It paints the picture of ol' Peter Henderson toiling away at his lathe 18 hours a day, cranking out pipes by the hundreds, while all the other makers were sitting around twiddling their thumbs, cobwebs growing on their lathes.

In fact probably less than half, perhaps a tenth, of the old pipes claimed to be Hendersons actually are.

It would help if the old makers were diligent about marking their pipes, but usually they didn't.