This is my main fiddle - I call it The Black and Tan because of its odd coloration - it seems that somewhere along the line somebody attempted to revarnish and color it black or, very dark brown - but swirly patches of golden brown still show through.
It looks like a tall glass of Guinness Stout, so - par for the course!
It has had a long life, and hopefully will live on for many more years after we part company; when I bought it in 2002 from local repairer/dealer Jan Hampton she was able to tell me it was of (Northern?) German origin, and about a century old...she had gotten it from a dealer in Chicago - so that's all I really know of its travels and history. It's intriguing to wonder in whose hands it may have been, all these years...(there's a pretty good movie on that very subject).
It has a very clear and 'dark', bass-y sound which I love. The day I found it I tried out at least ten violins (in the price range I could afford), picking them up and sounding them one after the other, and this one kept standing out - much to my distress at the time - because I hated the color and thought it was a real ugly duckling of a fiddle...I always wanted a nice light brown instrument, preferably with a little age showing in the grain; I felt that the sound of the instrument and that sort of color went together, like airborne whisky, it's a golden-brown sound.
But sound won out over beauty, and it came home to live with me. I've since grown to appreciate the quirky appearance!
Last year at our Irish music session, a Brit expatriate fiddler, friend of a friend, stopped by to listen and took great interest in the B&T, he asked to see it and after having inspected it, declared by its sound and shape, it was probably a 'Maidstone fiddle'. (He also was of the opinion that I was a shit-hot fiddle player, so I'm inclined to take his word for it!) Apparently in the 1890s a foundation in England was set up to provide British schoolchildren with inexpensive student instruments, to promote the playing of classical music among the masses. These instruments were imported from Germany, by the hundreds of thousands, so the time frame and place of origin are on the money. They weren't regarded as anything much at the time, mere student instruments, but were well made, and out of good materials (it's hard to find suitable trees to build violins out of these days, but that's another story). According to this guy (whose name, to my great shame I can't remember right now! Last name, 'Strong') they all share that signature low clear sound. Over the years their value has increased to where it's no Stradivarius, but a solid investment for a player starting out - I paid around $900 for this one - after working a part time bartending job all summer.
Again the booze-fiddle connection; I'm beginning to discern a pattern here...
There's not much solid information about Maidstone fiddles on the Web, I did find this rambling online discussion about them, with lots of historical information about the whole Maidstone Music Education movement and things, here... at a luthier's website.
All this blabbing about, and looking at, my fiddle makes me want to go play the thing, now!
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