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Today I sold an £80 violin from the Bargain Basement - new but with a couple of small blemishes, hence the reduction (why people worry so much about blemishes when the instrument is for a child at school beats me!)Got it ready to send and found a twang on the E string.  Well no-one wants one of those so I needed to fix it.  But what caused it?  Nothing loose so nothing easy to fix.  Suspected a problem with the bridge.  Tried lubricating the bridge.  No change.  Tried lubricating it a bit more.  No change.  Changed the string.  No change. ...

This message doesn't seem to be getting through and I have no idea why.  My stocks even of full size Gligas are very limited.  My stocks of smaller sizes are even lower, typically only one each of 3/4 and 1/2 size violins and only Genial 1 to Gems 1 (many Gliga stockists in the UK don't seem to stock these sizes at all). There are two reasons for this which I have explained many times (see previous posts).  1. Demand for Gliga far outstrips supply so there is a lead time of about a month and orders are made on...

There is a relatively clever scam on ebay at the moment. A violin bow for £38.95 (bear in mind that this includes ebay and paypal fees and postage) that claims to be made in Germany and is described as a W. Doerfler pernambuco bow.   Here is why it is clever: there is indeed a very well known German bow making company called Dörfler. The umlaut in German represents an E and it is common for English transcriptions of words with an umlaut to use an E rather than hunting around for the German character on the keyboard. Commonly with...

I am following with great interest a listing on ebay for a used Guarneri pattern Gama that I sold to a customer in 2012 and which he has now replaced with an instrument costing about 4k. This violin was first listed at £550 (exactly the same price as I list my new Gamas on ebay - yes it is more expensive than on my own website, it's the fees) which to be fair does include a case.  Then it gradually went down to £500, reducing by £10 a time.  Then up to £599, then up to £625, then £635, then...

Had a bit of a panic this morning when I found myself unable to open the bathroom door, and an hour to go before my packing person was due (OK it could have been a lot worse!).  Finally managed to get out by using a teaspoon on the door catch. Why mention it?  Because the reason the door stuck is due to the fact that at the moment it is very humid here.  Wood is seriously affected by humidity.  And therefore, so are wooden violins.  So if you are ordering a violin and I don't send it during extremes of...