Scan 413
The violin, its famous makers and their imitators, 1887
8 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1interested in it. After examining the decoy bird, he returns it, and carelessly asks to look at the article. Whatever the value set upon it may be, he tenders exactly the half, the matter being usually settled by what is technically known as "splitting the difference." Delighted with his purchase, he carries it home, and persuades his friends he has got to the blind side of the dealer, and is in possession of the real thing for the fiftieth part of what others give for it. He proceeds to enlighten his friends on the subject, telling them to follow his example, which they invariably do.
3Scarcely a day passes without my hearing of a Cremona having been secured in the manner I have attempted to describe. My experience, however, teaches me that the whole thing is a delusion, and that the thoroughbred Cremona does not fall away from the companionship of its equals, once in the space of a lifetime, and that when this does happen, the instrument rarely falls to the bargain-hunter.
5The following exceptional incident will, I hope, not be found wanting in interest as bearing on this theme. A votary of the Violin purchased an old Fiddle for some two or three pounds, from a general dealer in musical instruments in his neighbourhood. He was well satisfied with his acquisition; and after subjecting it to a course of judicious regulation, so great were the improvements effected that the vendor regretted having sold it for such a trifling sum, and the more so when it was whispered about that the instrument was a veritable Amati—a report, by the way, far and wide of the mark, as it was simply an old Tyrolean copy.
7Some little time after the occurrence related, the lover of Violins heard that the same instrument-seller from whom
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.