This is a 4/4 violin, originally made in Czechoslovakia in 1918, then re-graduated and refinished in 1946 by Joseph H Stamps in Fort Worth, Texas. There is another name handwritten on the inside, Henry Brahinsky. Brahinsky was a prominent violinist in the DFW area at that time. I'm not 100% sure what his association with this instrument is, I would guess that the instrument belonged to one of his students. Varnish work has a nice patina to it. The top has been thinned but overly so. There are no cracks, and the bridge doesn't seem to be sinking into the top. The back seam has a gap that I think was there prior to the regrad work. It's been filled and seems stable. All of our instruments come with a 5 year warrantee, so if it were to develop into a problem, we would repair it.
I cleaned quite a bit of hand gunk off of this instrument, it's obvious that it had gotten a lot of use. I did a slight adjustment to the bridge curvature so that the E string is as close to the fingerboard as possible. Also a new soundpost. Next to the soundpost is a pencil line, this was done by Mr. Stamps to serve as a guide for the soundpost placement, it's not a crack. We put on a new set of Prim strings and found a chinrest that fit the instrument a bit better. Has a great fiddle tone, nice and bright with instantaneous bow response. Comes with a used but serviceable case, no bow.
I'm a professionally trained luthier and have owned a shop here in Northwest Arkansas since 2008. Over the years I've accumulated a good number of instruments that have a lot of potential for bluegrass/old-time players. Just completed a move and realized how many we've got! Time to find them some new homes.
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