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Meet the Maker: Michael Darnton

Meet the Maker: Michael Darnton

by Jonathon Peterson

Originally published in American Lutherie #27, 1991 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004



How did your lutherie career get started?

I started playing cello when I was in 6th grade and immediately got more interested in the instrument than I was in the playing. When I was about twelve years old I got some money for Christmas from my grandmother. The very next day I ran out and bought Heron-Allen’s Violin Making, As It Was and Is, which I had spotted at a local bookstore. I talked to my mother a couple of weeks ago and she told me that she took one look at the book and thought, “This is a waste of money! He’s never going to do anything with it. It’s much too complex.” But she was wrong. I really surprised her.

It took awhile to get around to it, though. Five or six years later I bought a piece of wood and some tools. I started a violin, but I didn’t get very far. I just put the whole thing aside.

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Violin Q&A, Part Three

Violin Q & A, Part Three

by Michael Darnton

Originally published in American Lutherie #25–#33, 1991–1993 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004



What can you tell me about the violin in these pictures?

When I look at these pictures I see several things:

▶ The outline of the back has high shoulders and is pointed under the button.
▶ The upper corner blocks are missing; the lower ones are fakes.
▶ The grain of the top converges strongly towards the ends of the top and the upper block does not fit against the top.
▶ The insides of the ribs are marked with tracks from a circular saw used to resaw them out of solid wood.
▶ The neck has been held on with a screw through the top block.
▶ There is an idiosyncratic bass bar.

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Letter: Price of Vintage Instruments

Letter: Price of Vintage Instruments

by Michael Darnton

Originally published in American Lutherie #61, 2000



Tim,

Regarding Chris Foss’ letter in AL#60: If Chris would evaluate the pricing of antique instruments from an economist’s viewpoint rather than a politician’s (in the sense of wanting the power to regulate who gets how much of what), he would understand it better.

He says he “understand[s] increases in value with increases in utility, but absolutely do[se]n’t understand increases in value with ‘collectability’.” In fact, utility has almost nothing to do with pricing. As any economist will probably tell you, pricing is a factor of supply and demand: if there are ninety-one pre-war Martin D-45s and no one on the face of the Earth wants them, they will be very cheap. But since there are only ninety-one, and everyone wants them, they are very expensive.

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Chemical Stains

Chemical Stains

by Michael Darnton

Originally published in American Lutherie #32, 1992 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004



One of the biggest problems for the violin maker trying to replicate the effects of time is the imitation of the color of ancient wood. Even unantiqued instruments benefit from the rich appearance of old, time-darkened wood under a coat of fine varnish.

Chemical stains have the greatest promise for replicating the look of old wood. Unlike aniline and pigment dyes which insert foreign colors into the wood, either in the form of a soluble dye or of a solid pigment, chemical stains cause a color change in the wood itself. The change is both permanent and clean-looking when compared to that of aniline and pigment colors.

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Attic Strads, and Why What’s Worth Something Is Worth What It’s Worth

Attic Strads, and Why What’s Worth Something Is Worth What It’s Worth

by Michael Darnton

Originally published in American Lutherie #25, 1991 and Big Red Book of American, Volume Three, 2004



One of the most common myths of violin fanciers is the existence of the attic Strad. The chances of finding a valuable violin at a garage sale are zip (or less). In recent years the number of Strads and Guarneris discovered in this world in this way can be counted on about three fingers, and they haven’t been found in attics in Kansas. Check out places like ancient European monasteries and the country homes of nobility if you want to increase your chances of finding something good. In spite of this, every large shop has several people a week coming in with a really bad violin they have been saving as a way to finance their retirement. In addition, hundreds of amateur collectors have instruments they believe are valuable Italians, which are “prevented from receiving their rightful recognition” by owners of the big shops who either “don’t want to admit that someone else has something good” or “don’t know what they’re talking about.” They are right; someone does not know what they are talking about. It isn’t the big shop owner.

In the early part of this century and the end of the last, thousands of cheap factory violins were imported into this country from Germany and Czechoslovakia. Although some of these look and sound quite nice and are made of beautiful wood, they are still just factory fiddles. Since much of a violin’s value derives from factors other than the quality of the wood and the quantity of sandpaper used in its construction, like it or not those factors don’t mean much in assessing the value of an instrument. Certainly no one would appraise a painting based on the cost of the paint and the quality of the canvas, yet many amateur violin collectors use that type of criterion for evaluating their finds.

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