Scan 149
Voice and violin : sketches, anecdotes, and reminiscences, 1898
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 129. See the scan on archive.org.
1cut, doubtless through ignorance, at the wrong time of the year. The consequence has been that much of this wood, having been taken when full of sap, has, sooner or later, become worm-eaten, especially the maple used for the backs.
3Of this noted family of violin and violoncello makers, Sebastian Kloz is now known to have been the greatest. His violins are extremely rare and of considerable value. To my knowledge they have been more than once sold as instruments by Stradivarius, and at very high prices. In 1824 a splendid violin by Sebastian Kloz was sold in England as a Stradivarius, the price being one hundred guineas, even in those early days. A few years later the leader of the orchestra at the Haymarket Theatre, as we are told by Pearce, the author of a book on old violins, was offered by a noble lord more than £300 for such a violin, but he would not accept the offer.
5In much later times, about 1880 or 1881, a dealer in London sold a Sebastian Kloz violin to a gentleman in Oxford for £210. It was also sold as a Stradivarius, but as the genuine violins of the latter were, when in good condition, selling easily at about double that amount, probably the vendor knew who was the real maker of this instrument. I may add that I have seen it, and played upon it, and that it is as fine a violin as any one could ever hope to possess.
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