Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey there. An interesting piece came into the shop today, and I'm hoping someone here can help me shed some light on it's provenance and the background of it's maker. The label inside reads:

Saquin luthier
Rue Beuregard 14
Paris 1827

Needless to say I'll be researching this instrument before dissecting it, and will probably call on the expertise of Mr. Condino. Has anyone ever come across one of these? Other than the catastrophic neck-joint failure, it seems to be in great shape. Here's a couple of photos:

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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

Don't know the luthier....but the later addition of the CUSTOM MASSIVE chin piece is pretty rare. Must have been a ton of chin there to need such a custom support.
KB

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Wood Creations by Kent A. Bailey
EXCELLENCE IN SCULPTURE, CARVING, LUTHIER, ARCHITECTURAL MILLWORK AND DESIGN

http://www.kabart.com

Excuse my ignorance, but aren't violins built to be taken apart easily? I think even Strads have been opened up repeatedly right? I'm just thinking it wouldn't be that big of a deal as long as you could put the thing back together correctly.

Well, I'm at least as ignorant as you, probably more so. But, yes, I think it would be fairly straightforward to separate the back from the ribs; however, if this is an authentic Sacquin, it's potentially worth a ton. The big question in my mind is how extensive will the repair be once I get it open. While I think I could do a neat repair, I can't say I'm real familiar with the ethics of archival violin restoration, and the last thing I want to do is get in over my head trying to do a favor for a friend.

From what little info I could scrounge up online, Claude Sacquin only made a handful of violins (I think he also made double basses), and they are considered to be very good quality. Apparently there are a good many German copies out there. It sure smells old and French. The scroll seems to be original, though my friend James Condino pointed out that it's been grafted onto a new neck and fingerboard. The tuning peg holes have been plugged and redrilled, and there seems to be some work done internally to the bass bar. James and I agree that the top was probably removed to facilitate this.

Oh, and yes, all the hardware, including tuning pegs, ginormous chinrest, and tailpiece are modern.

That said, an 1860 Sacquin violoncello sold at auction in 1996 for $21,114...

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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

I work in a violin shop and these are exactly the kind of repairs I do on a daily bases. The first thing I would recommend would be to take the violin to a professional. You can easily do more harm than good trying to fix this. I wouldn't recommend that you try to fix this yourself if you have any reason at all to believe it's authentic. Violin repair is not something you learn over night. If this is your first go, you will almost assuredly make a mistake. Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm just trying to save you some grief and even bigger repair bills down the line.