Once, at a Flea Market in Norwalk, CT, I bought an old beat-up fiddle. When I got home, I looked inside the fiddle and there was old, parchmenty, stained slip of paper glued to the wood and faint but legible handwriting: "...Guarnieri " Like a signature you see.
"Well, I be dang," says I, "I went and bought me a old timey famous fiddle, I did! (Guarnieri you see (I did some checking you bet! LOL!) is Italian fiddle -maker just about on a par some say with Stradivarius). "Now," I thought, "I can retire early and visit the Riveara and all them things..." But just to be sure (and by breathless prior appointment), I hopped in car and drove down to the Metropolitan Museum in NYC to confer with the appropriate Curator of Musicology and Staff. He and cohorts examined the fiddle - in private - for long time - maybe 45 minutes or so, then came out and said, "Mr. Powell...We can't say this is a genuine Guarnieri, but nor can we say it is not..." (Experts...Bah!). "But you could get someone else to look at it if you like". He turned on his heel and closed the door. As I was leaving, his receptionist said, "Mr. Powell - you could if you like check Mr. Powell - same name as yours - tee-heeee! - up in Connecticut somewhere..." So I said who is he? And she said "Oh, very, very famous violin expert (then looking around...) "Maybe even more famous than my boss here..."
So I thanked her and she gave me the name of town (which for moment I have forgotten - but it was just short drive above my place). So when I got back home, I stirred around and finally smoked out a phone number for this dude. I called him and he said, "Sure! Come on up!" So couple days later I did. Guy lived in big old ramshackle place kinda down in hairpin turn of road in a hollow as best I recall. Big old guy I seem to remember - shock of white hair. Loner. Eccentric. House full of fiddles and bass violins and violas everywhere. Parts here and there on benches, etc.
So he says, "You likely wondering who I am?" I said..."Yep!" So he told me he was the guy among other things that took care of all the New York Philharmonic violins for their owners, etc. - restoration, rebuilding, the works. Other ensembles and groups, too. He was in fact... "Mr. Violin," make no bones about that. He was the MAN and others - including from Europe - came to to consult over their violins and get them fixed, evaluated, etc. here in the CT woods...
He looked at my fiddle for few minutes then said, "Listen! this is no Guarnieri - but it is a moderately nice fiddle. This kind of thing comes up all the time. Like to know?" I said, "You betcha!" - and sat down to listen...
He said "Folks always showing up with fiddles like these they pick up in flea markets and fairs and shops around. Let me tell you what it is... Many decades ago, fiddle makers began sticking these little paper labels in their fiddles. The original idea was to indicate that the particular fiddle "was made in the manner of..." a Stradivarius or a Guarnieri, or whomever. With time, however, this practice ceased and the original reasons for it were lost and people began to think it meant "this fiddle was owned by or actually made by..." - and that is how all this confusion comes about." Interesting. Sort of like (he said) when you see "Mickey Mantle's" name on a baseball bat: means a bat like he would have used, but not that he necessarily made or owned...
So I sort of egged him on and he told me he actually had one or two Strads on premises there and a couple of Guarnieris upstairs, etc. and was repairing same for big time collectors and members of the Philharmonic, etc. etc. And one of his projects was to refurbish a Strad that someone owned and the only thing it actually lacked (it was the REAL goods as established by some other test...) was a paper label (NB: originally back in old days, Stradivarius and Guarnieri and the other fiddle makers DID put such labels in their instruments...) but this one had got lost. Then he told me intriguing story: once he went to Europe and visited a Nunnery. The Mother Superior had left him alone in a room where there were some medieval books - he had torn a blank fly leaf out of one and spirited it away. He had studied medieval inks, etc. and all that, and what he was doing was forging Stradivariius' name on the medieval paper and would paste that into the Strad case (the owner and several fellow experts all knew about this and it was declared all on the up and up...). It was so perfect a "forgery" (or refurbish update) no expert had ever been able to detect it!
Wow!
So, there my tale might rest - save for one further twist: Some time after, I was telling a friend all this and he said, "What a great little story! Too bad with all your writing skills you couldn't get it in the papers." (This kind of pricked my ego, you see...) So I said, "What you mean..."couldn't" get it in the papers? Bet you five bucks I have it in ink by end of week. LOL! So when he was gone, I picked up phone to local newspaper (Norwalk Hour, I recall) and told my story of buying same at local flea market, etc. etc. - and Bingo! next day here is my story inside in couple of columns!
And even that's not the end!
This item got picked up by the AP rewrite folks and overnight it appeared in newspapers throughout the Nation! I am kidding you not! People began to call and write me from all over! Item: a long-lost friend who had moved to Miami, saw the item there and called me on phone! LOL! Item: a muskrat trapper from Louisiana who was a Cajun fiddler saw item in his paper and wanted to know if I would sell fiddle to him. He called several times - and began to call around dawn every morning - drove my wife nuts! Item: a rich rancher from Texas called and said he wanted to buy the fiddle. He collected them and had indeed gone to Europe and bought an entire Medieval fiddle-makers shop, dismantled it, and brought it back to Texas and set up on his place. He played fiddles and he and his family were gospel singers on local station every Sunday. He wanted to play and sing with my fiddle and tell folks where he got it. LOL INCLUDEPICTURE "http://cdn-cf.aol.com/se/smi/0201d201a5/09" \* MERGEFORMATINET I said you win - and sold it to him for $30 or something like that!
True Story!
PS -
I never did learn to play fiddle but still always wished I had...
PPS -
One final item: long after, I heard or maybe read in paper (not sure) where this famous guy, Powell the Fiddle Expert - was murdered by unknown persons in his remote workshop home up in CT! Never heard anymore and can only presume some of his valuable fiddlles figured in it all...(???)