Well I was playing around today in a thrift store and saw this old violin that had caught my eye. ( Back story) I "was" a violinist at one time turned luthier out of necessity, growing up in the country in Oklahoma in 70s. We had to send off our instruments if needed any setup or repair to OKC ro Tulsa adn wait a week or 2 to get it back... just being in the scene and a healthy background in woodworking I started doing my own repairs and spent many hrs in library reading books on art of lutherie... a lot more to that story but over time with influences in north texas and friends in the music scene I migrated over into archtop jazz guitars and custom one off guitars for clients and occasional restorations on old violins. With that said... I hadnt heard of the Guldan Violins.. and at first inspection the violin was not strung up fully but did have very nice figured wood and ebony fingerboard and bridge and I thought what the heck, I havent seen an American made production violin before... this label looks a little more hand written and says The Gulden Sanduski #24 1913. I have it here at the house and it does in deed have the one piece bent sides but its very nice wood... the sound is very resonant... the base bar does look a little deep but instrument is very light . neck angle is good pitch.. with that said.. Im guessing this is pretty rare and may be worth setting up ( which ill do anyway) all of these violins now that I can find, show jackson-Guldan but I believe this is before that. I'll send pics once I am allowed... this is my first post and I read on a locked thread that someone thought there may be older instruments before they were bought by jackson... this may be one.. and #24
this was the thread I read previous to my first post... fiddlehangout.com/archive/40383
The thread linked above provides some good information on the history of the Jackson Guldan company. While it was an enterprising and exciting idea to attempt to establish an American violin making factory, it never really got off the ground for several reasons. The biggest problem it faced was a lack of production quality. In an effort to streamline the process and adapt it for machinery, the company sacrificed far too much and put out products that were poor structurally and tonally. German violins were being pumped out en masse at that time and the average quality was much better, even in the low end. The German makers had the huge advantage of having spent at least a hundred years already making violins by hand and developing very efficient tool skills. It wasn’t until around 1910 that machinery became a part of the making process there, and in that case, machinery was developed in service of making violins, not the other way that Jackson Guldan went about it. The infrastructure for shipping violins to America from Germany was already firmly established, with orders by the train boxcar being shipped out every day. Trying to compete at the low end was disastrous. The competition with Germany killed off the violin making enterprise, and later, competition with Japan killed off the rest of the business.
The failure of that company has served as a cautionary tale for American violin businesses ever since. There have been a number of smaller ventures that have produced instruments in the US since then, but they have all been much smaller operations, usually a division of a shop or a single maker working exclusively for a shop as a contractor. Shops that have paid makers to produce instruments have not done so as their main means of income and they have not attempted to compete at the bottom of the market.
Edited by - The Violin Beautiful on 03/26/2025 05:11:24
Yup I read all that... was unfortunate... this looks nicer the factory ones by wood ad tap alone but its not a masterpiece.. but just maybe some collectability as it seems it was made before they become the jackson-gulden... i have no idea of its previous roots but it looks nicer than a suzuki violin. finish is quite thin too . isnt machine made. just a fu little project maybe collectible... tap is good enough I bet I can make it play quite well.
One thing I notices is that the recarve is quite wide.. maybe sure to how the ribs were constructed... ill have to look at it more.. its not lined on the inside either. but ribs are quite thin.
Edited by - archtop67 on 04/20/2025 10:46:08
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