You can help this site in an hour, and you do not need any credentials. Right now it has 605 published maker records and 4,329 more sitting in draft. Each draft is waiting for one thing: a person to read its lines against the scanned page and say whether they match.
The first step
Send one email to info@bowandbridge.com saying you would like to check records. That is the whole first step. You will be sent a draft record and the scanned page it points to.
The job itself is simple. The record says “this page names this person, at this address, in this trade”. You look at the page and answer: does it really say that? Yes, no, or not sure. Every draft on the state of the work page is waiting on exactly that question. It is the slowest step we have, and the only one a machine cannot do.
Other ways to help
Tell us about an instrument you own. The site is building a public register of surviving instruments, and much of what it needs exists only in private hands. Send the label copied exactly as written, spelling and line breaks included. (The label is the paper slip glued inside, naming a maker.) Say where any number appears: on the label, inked inside the back, branded into the wood, or nowhere. Photos of the scroll and the f-holes help most; they show a maker’s hand better than a label does.
Point us to a document. Maybe you know of a directory, letter, catalogue or article this project has not seen. A note saying it exists, and where, is worth sending on its own.
Catch a mistake. If a published line is not supported by the page it cites, that is the most useful email of all. It becomes a logged correction on the record, not a quiet edit.
Privacy
You do not have to give a name, a town, or any way to reach you. The register has no field for any of them. If you want to stay anonymous, say so, and your report is handled exactly like one with a name on it.
What we do not do
An owner’s report goes into the register marked as an owner’s report, in plain view. It never gets rewritten as proven fact. We do not attach a value, and we do not say whether the label is genuine. This site does not appraise or authenticate instruments. What it keeps is an honest, sourced record of what has been reported, so the next person who looks has something better than silence.
Where to send it
Everything goes to the same address: info@bowandbridge.com. Tell us as much or as little about yourself as you like.