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September 15, 2016 • 40 mins

The Strad violin is noted for its tonal qualities and superior craftsmanship. And for its price tag. There are many theories why the Strad sounds so great, from the wood to the lacquer, to the simple fact that Antonio Stradivari was really good at what he did. Rosin up your bow and take a listen.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Rolling. Yeah,
Jerry said right before she press record, I'm sleepy three one.

(00:24):
Oh really, Yeah, I didn't hear you. Didn't you notice that? Did?
I was just memorizing. I was practicing what I was
gonna say. Oh, that's right, I'll go ahead. I just did.
Oh I was successful. You're practicing. Help. Hey, welcome to
the podcast. Uh should we talk fiddles? Uh? Yeah, chuck
fiddle d D. Let's do I bought one a few

(00:45):
years ago. By the way, I took one lesson. Uh huh,
and you became an expert. No, that's just me, man,
That's how things go with me. I have a lot
of things that I've been like, I'm gonna do this,
go allow of balls in the air. Yeah. Specifically musically,
I bought a steel guitar and I didn't learn to
play that. I bought a keyboard and was gonna learn

(01:07):
to play piano. Didn't do that. The violin. I'm keeping
a violin though. So you're stimulating the economy, Yeah, pretty much,
and I usually keep just like sell that and use
that money to buy the next thing. I don't play,
but I don't know, like I know how to play guitar.
So I'm kind of realizing at my age, like maybe
that's all it's gonna be. You're a guitar man, like

(01:28):
Bread said. Yeah, but used I used to want to
be like man by the time I die. I want
to be able to play all the stringed instruments. That
was my goal, and I've learned one. I mean that's
more than some people. I don't. I don't know how
to play any stringed instruments. So but you don't care
to it sounds like no. I mean, well, so you
consider the piano stringed instrument. Uh it's got strings so yeah,

(01:52):
as a percussion or is it stringers? It both? Well,
a little hammer hits the strings percussion interesting, um, whereas
a harpsichord is plucked. Yeah, talking piano, I wish I
could play the piano. I'd like to learn that one day.
My brother took lessons as a kid and my sister,
but I didn't. Oh yeah, Scott can still play a

(02:13):
little bit today of course. Hey Scott super bro. Uh
so the fiddle. A little history here before we get
into the man um the fiddle or violin. There's no difference,
by the way, is that right? Yep? One pronounced one
way and the others pronounced the other way. Yeah, it's

(02:33):
a little and I thought there was a difference when
I bought mine. I was like, well, what's the difference,
And it's just and how you play it. They're like
kill billies play fiddles. Yeah, other people play violin exactly.
So the fiddle at first was not a well regarded instrument.
It was thought of as a sort of a cheap
tavern instrument, you know, like you'd get drunk and hop
up on the table at the tavern and beat out

(02:54):
a little Irish jig. Uh yeah, And it didn't have
a good reputation. Win well, I mean this is uh
the sixteenth century, Okay. So then initially yeah, okay, yeah,
I'm with you, I'm okay hang uh. And then even
in parts of Italy, at first the church ordered the

(03:14):
destruction of violins. They were so like look down upon.
And then a lady named Catherine de Medici got on
board and she's like, this thing is wonderful. I'm gonna
order thirty eight of them for my court from this
guy named Nicholas Amati who was the grandson of the
great violin maker Andrea Amadi. Actually she probably bought them

(03:37):
from Andrea if it was and um, yeah, it was
fifteen sixty four, and uh, that was it. Things started
to change and that's literally what kind of led the
violin down a path of respectability. Yeah. Once you introduced
it into court, people tend to follow suit. Yeah. Um yeah.
So the the Amadi's lived in a place called Cremona, Italy, right,

(04:03):
and Cremona because the Amadis lived there, who were basically
the de factor inventors of the violin, cello and viola
as we recognize them today. Because that's where they were from,
Cremona became the center of violin production, stringed instrument production,
plain and simple. Yeah, which is pretty neat, like the

(04:26):
the idea that that's where violence came from and that
they're that recent in origin, and of course that goes
further back than that, like lutes were obviously around long
before the violin. But again, if you look at a
violin today and say, oh, it's a violin, you can
thank the Amadis of cremona for for making that recognizable

(04:46):
to you. Yeah, and here's another cool little fact. The
uh the you know, the fancy beautiful shape of a
violin is not for aesthetics. It is all about the
sound that it makes. The violin doesn't give a damn
whether you think that looks good. Well, it turned out
to look beautiful. But all those curves allow for equal
resonance of all the notes, which if it was more

(05:08):
basically shaped, certain notes would be sound better than others.
Huh so um. That allowed the entire fingerboard to sound
wonderful well. Plus Also, if you look at a violin
face on, sure, uh, if you go down the sides
in the middle, it's cut in. Those are called seabouts.
Those actually have a practical purpose, I'm sure, in addition

(05:30):
to helping produce sound. But it allows the bow to
play the strings on either side without hitting the body
of the violin. Pretty clever. It's really hard to play.
I can't stress that enough. It's like I thought, this
is not so different than the guitar. Like I'm just
holding it under my neck and using a bow instead

(05:51):
of fingers. That's got to be a pretty big difference.
It's a huge difference fingers bow totally different. You're born
with one the other. You have to like buy well,
it's it's a combination of pressure on a string, angle
of the bow on the string, pressure from your parents,
placement of the bow on like as far as how

(06:13):
far down it is, up and down the violin um speed.
It's like there's like ten different things that go into
making a sound on a violin that you have to
do successfully all at once. It's really really hard. Like
I was intimidated and went in the closet. You go,
maybe my daughter will play one day and it will

(06:34):
be waiting for her. So we'll see. But should we
go over the parts? I know you mentioned the sea about? Sure,
sea about is my favorite, so you take it from there. Well,
if you look at the violind you got the very
above those little tuning pegs which are contained in the
peg box. You've got the scroll, which is that kind
of curvy, lovely fancy piece at the top. Uh. Then

(06:56):
you have the neck and the fingerboard. The neck goes
from basically down to the body of the violin, but
the fingerboard continues on through it. Uh the upper bout,
the lower about and then that sea about You mentioned,
which is also called the waist. Then you have your
two f holes cut on either side, the fancy holes. Yeah,
they look like f's. Uh. Then you have your bridge,

(07:17):
which is the very thin piece of wood that keeps
the strings you know, off of the violin body itself
and taught. Then you have your tailpiece at the bottom
where the strings end, and then the all important chin rest.
And that's a violin. Bam, go make one now I'm leaving.
So again, there was the amadis that came up with

(07:40):
the the violin you just described. That's right. And one
of the amadis the grandson of Andrea Amati, who I
think is credited with inventing the violin basically. Um, but
his grandson, Nicola uh, taught a young man by the
name of Antonio and and only a Strativiry. That name

(08:02):
sounds familiar, Yeah, Uh. Antonio Stradivari was born in Cremona.
They're not sure when they think, probably about sixty four.
Life is a bit of a mystery, his young life
at least, right, not a lot of great records on it.
Do you know what? This just a jog my memory.
We never explained why Alexander Hamilton would shave two years

(08:23):
off of his age, even though we specifically said we
were going to. Well that's awesome. Should we follow up now?
Probably not. I think people would get mad. Yeah, if
you want to know, right in and we'll tell you,
or maybe we'll post it on such means. I think
that's better. Yeah, but who cares. We're talking Stradivaria now. Yeah,

(08:43):
we've moved on all right. So Stradivari. Uh, there's not
very good records, um about his his youth. I think
as you said, um, but he pops up in sixteen
sixty six at the very latest. That's right. Violin pops
up in sixteen sixty six. I should say. It has
an inscription on it and a label actually uh, And

(09:07):
if you translated to English, it says made by Antonio
Stradivari of cremona pupil of Nicolo Amati in sixteen sixty six.
Well done a year of satan. Uh. And that means
he was either a pupil, which it clearly says, or
a bit of a bit of a stretch of the truth,

(09:30):
in a bit of a ruse in a career move. Really. Yeah,
there's some people that say, and that's why I was wondering.
It says people believe some people believe he was a pupil. Yeah,
I didn't the well it says he was a pupil
and the inscription. But the other thought is that maybe
it was a bit of a career move to say
I was taught by the grade Amati um who's dead
now and can't say otherwise. Maybe, but who knows. I

(09:51):
bet he was probably a pupil. Actually he wasn't dead,
so that would have been pretty uh gutsy to have
done that, because um Amati didn't die for many years,
many more years after sixteen sixty six. So I think
the common consensus is that he was a pupil of
the body. He would have said, he's stealing in my business,
So what up with that? Man? This thing is gonna
be lousy with that, alright. So sixteen sixty six, you

(10:16):
are correct, he builds his very first violin on his own. Uh.
He continues to build violens on his own in his attic,
which was apparently the tradition attic violin building? Was it?
That's what it said. I guess that was just like
where you would put your workshop. Who knows, maybe it
I don't know. Have you ever seen the movie The

(10:37):
Red Violin. Yes, great movie, agreed, like stick with it.
I think I might have seen that on your recommendation
years ago, if I'm not mistaken. Uh yeah, really good
movie though. Um so he's making violence. He moves into
a home in sixteen eighty and um he started to

(10:58):
get some recognition as a great builder and maker of violins,
a great craftsman. He did, h and he was still
kind of living in the shadow of the Amadi's um
But when uh Nicola Amadi died in sixteen eighty four,
by this time everyone said, this guy is Cremona's best
maker of violins, which since Cremona was the world capital

(11:22):
of violin making and they were made elsewhere, but Cremona
was like the place where the best were made, the
crem of the Cremona Right, that made him the world's
best violin maker. And he hadn't even entered his golden
period yet. Yeah, and he was making more than violins.
He's making cellos and guitars and mandolins and harps uh
pretty much anything with strings except harpsichords. Who knows, he

(11:45):
might have made a harpsichord that that'd be worth a
lot probably. So, Uh, all right, should we take a
break here, Yes, all right, we'll get into more craftsmanship
right after this. M alright. So Strativari is following in

(12:15):
Amadi's amati It's footsteps, but he's also like, you know
what I'm gonna, I'm gonna start tweaking this thing, Yeah,
and craft my own brand of violin. Uh. And he
does so. He said, I'm gonna use some new materials,
maybe some new finishes. I'm gonna I'm gonna make that
c about a little straighter then you're used to. And

(12:38):
then f's a little straighter the f holes Is it straighter?
Was that the deal? I knew? We altered the f
hole some and uh something with the scroll too, Is
that right? He made it more amazing, and he made
the scroll larger, the f holes not only straighter, but longer,

(13:00):
larger scroll, and a and a straighter and stronger seabout
that was like mechanically that those were the biggest differences, right.
But he also crucially came up with his own formula
for a varnish. Um It's a very easily recognized, deep
deep red brown varnish that his violins have. It's very handsome,

(13:21):
but a lot of people, as will see later, believe
that it's possibly the varnish that makes strato various violins
so great because when he made these changes, not only
was he making these changes to the the shape and
appearance of the violin um, he was also like a

(13:43):
master would in layer like the craftsmanship that his violins
had or just unparalleled. They're flawless, flawless works of art
as musical instruments. So in addition to just being a
flawless work of art, they also sounded better than anything
anything that could possibly um compare to be compared to

(14:04):
it um. And what's really exceptional about Strata various is
it's not just one of those things where like, oh
the name is actually what what is really driving it?
A strata various violin that's three years old today is
probably better than any violin that's been produced in the
last three hundred years, including a brand new one. Like

(14:26):
they're only now getting to the point where they can
they they've discovered techniques where they can start to replicate
the sound of strativarius. That's how good this guy's violins were.
That that it's not it's not a joke, it's not hyperbole.
Of how great the strata various violins were, they are
still the ones that this guy made by hand are

(14:47):
still the best violins in the world. That's really saying
something considering how much progress we've made in the last
three hundred years on just about everything. And and these
are you know, for the the finest uh tuned ear
is in the world. Like, clearly there are flawless amazing
instruments and violins being produced since then. But for the

(15:10):
true like aficionado, they can spot the difference. Apparently, Oh yeah,
like you and I can't know. But people whose job
it is to um identifying a praise strata various violence
say that comparing it to a non strut strata various
like a knockoff or something, is like comparing a ferrari

(15:31):
to a school bus. It's like that. Obvious people like
saying things like that, it's a great quote. We're just
a couple of schumps. What do we know? Um, so
it just might be a new gag. So uh. He
and his first wife had six kids. He was good
at having kids. He and his second wife. His wife

(15:54):
sadly died in He got remarried and had five more
kids with wife Number two. He was great at making
violins and making children, yes, crafting children's great at crafting
little babies. They called them the mice jo in the bedroom,
you know what I mean. And I think a couple

(16:15):
of his sons even went on to follow in his footsteps.
Is that right from his first marriage? Right? They were
second line. They were smumps, though they couldn't hold a
candle to their father's work. So let's talk about the
golden period from seventeen hundred to seventeen twenty five. Depending
on who you talked to, this was the golden period

(16:36):
where these violins. I mean he had really honed his
design at this point, and the materials that he used
and everything kind of all coalesced into making the best
violins in the history of the world. It was like
Lebron's tenure at the Heat. Oh well, we'll see his
career is not over yet. Yeah you're calling it now, huh?

(17:00):
I mean he he he made a case for a
resurgence this past season. But we'll see if he can
repeat it. Okay. He was playing on five hundred cylinders
with the heat. It was just perfect because he didn't
have to be the team leader. He could be one
of like the leaders that that team had several leaders

(17:20):
and he could be one of them. It wasn't like
the whole team just pushed upward towards Lebron. See A
lot of people have the opposite view that that was.
You know, anyone can get on a team of superstars
and win championships, but no, not necessarily would be the
one leader is a bigger accomplishment. I'm very curious to
know how, say, like the Golden State Warriors are going
to be next season with Durant and Steph Curry and

(17:44):
Clay Thompson on there. Thompson knows so much, but like
stef Curry and Kevin Durant, they're like two of the
greatest players that have ever lived, ever lived, not just
they're playing right now. How are they going to gel
the idea that Duane Wade and Chris Bosh and Lebron James,
we're all a well to keep their egos in check
and come together to work together and lead a team together.

(18:06):
That I think that's harder than that's just being like
forget it, I'll do it myself, you know. Yes, all right,
So strata vari is uh making his mark on the world,
getting his reputation and he's making a lot of money.
He wasn't one of these. It's like after he died
they later realized how great he was. He was a
rich man making and selling these violins. Yeah, apparently there's

(18:29):
a phrase richest strata vari Yeah, like richer than an
astronaut is what we would say today. Yeah, he was
one of the more famous guys in Italy at the time,
for sure. Yeah, and rightfully so. His crowning achievement, supposedly
is uh in seventeen sixteen when he built the Messiah Uh.
And this is the only violin that he never sold

(18:50):
that he kept in his workshop till the day died.
It was his head stash violin. And um he this
this violin has rarely been played. Apparently. One of the
sort of things unspoken rules when this thing has been
sold and passed down is that don't even play it.
This one should remain pristine. Yeah. It's basically as close

(19:11):
to a mint conditioned strata various as you can find
in the world. Oh, it's not close, it's meant yeah,
but I mean a couple of people have played it.
It's it's not been unplayed. Okay, Yeah, a couple of
bad eggs in there, a couple of super lucky violin
plays that screw your unwritten rules. This is before the

(19:34):
Ashmolean got their hands on it. Okay, um, so post seventy,
post Golden period, he still produced violins and things, but uh,
apparently his eyesight was going, his hands were not as steady,
and they weren't quite what they were during the Golden period.
I'm sure they were still wonderful violence. Oh yeah, he's
still turning out the good stuff, but nothing like that

(19:55):
Golden period. And he worked into his nineties, so he
was building violence for you know, seventy years. He worked
up to his death, as far as I understand, I
think so, um so yeah, but that Golden period stuff
that was there was the Messiah from seventeen sixteen, the
Large from seventeen fifteen, the Bets from seventeen o four. Um.

(20:17):
Those are just a few of the ones that he
made during this period that are still around today. He
made I saw a thousand alysis of hundred stringed instruments
during his career, About six hundred and fifty survived today. Um.
And there they tend to have names, especially the ones
from his Golden period. As you just heard. Um, they

(20:38):
have names, and they're usually the name of the most
famous UH player who owned it. Right, Um, they weren't
like Skippy and old Roy right barnabas violin So Um,
there's a there's a superstition among violinists that the more

(21:01):
you play a violin, the more a particular person plays violin,
the more that violin takes on the character of that player. Right,
so much so that a violinist or even a cellist
or of the oldest can come along afterward and play
that person's violin and it will it will sound much
more like the person who's violin it is than the

(21:24):
person playing it. And there's there's a further superstition that
the more you play of violind the better it sounds. Well,
that's not a superstition, that's fact in any instrument. So
there is a study, um from I think that I
came across that that found that the more violin would
is vibrated, the more the dampening coefficient is lowered. The

(21:50):
lower the dampening coefficient. The longer a note resonates, the
longer a note resonates, the richer the sound. And so
just playing it right because you're you're vibrating the wood
when you're playing a violin. The more you do that,
the more frequently you do that, the better the violin
is actually gonna sound so astoundingly. The more you play
a violin, the better it sounds. Well, that's true for

(22:11):
any instrument. Yeah, it's called breaking it in. It's like
a pair of jeans that you can identify with that. Sure,
I love jean and you know a pair of jeans
five years in or better than there when you take
them off the shelf. Yeah, it's the same thing. It's
breaking it in, especially strings with anything with a fingerboard.

(22:34):
That fingerboard just you know, wears in. Those frets wear
down little, and it does get a little bit tuned,
I think to your style. Yeah for sure. Yeah, very interesting. Um,
I'd like to do more on musical instruments here and there. Okay,
I'm putting it out there, all right, all right, Well
let's take another quick break and we will get into
all the controversies surrounding just why these things sounds so

(22:58):
good and all those theories. Pretty interesting stuff. So, Chuck,
I gotta say you did a good job putting this
one together. Mhm, Okay, I'm I'm interested in it. You know,

(23:24):
we I had that stuff from the B Side podcast
for like two months back in the day. People still
call for it and we uh covered this very briefly. Yeah,
and not we didn't do right by it. So that's
I was like, you know what, that's a good topic. Nice,
I mean, dust that one off. Um. So there have
been many many theories over the years, like if the

(23:48):
strata is so revered and legendary that people experts, scientists
are bound to want to crack that nut. Yeah, like
why yeah, like what's the deal? And it's not. Again,
this is it's objectively better than other violence. The ones
that strat Stratavari made correct some of the theories. The

(24:08):
old theories back then was that he would soak the
wood in salt water, not true. That the wood was
coated with volcanic ash not true. Dragon's blood was used
in the varnish. That may have been true. Uh, George R.
Martin came up with that one. Probably so, and then

(24:29):
I'll you know, we'll get into the more modern theories.
There's really well, there's a couple of leading theories. One
is the wood Yeah, this ice age would which we'll
talk about and the others the varnish. Okay, well there,

(24:49):
Strata Varia was working during what's known as Europe's Little
Ice Age, which is a period of unusually, very unusually
colder temperatures. Um, and I think they're still trying to
figure out what the heck happened, And as a matter
of fact, we need to do like an irregular Ice
Age podcast and we'll talk about it then. But the
upshot of it was that because of the colder temperatures,

(25:13):
the spruce that was used by strativerari Um in the
manufacture of these violins grew slower but more evenly steadier,
so that the wood that was harvested from these spruce
trees was much more um uniformly grained. Right, So just
basically really high end wood is was produced by this

(25:37):
little ice age. The problem with that being the reason
that Stratovarias violins were so great is that that wood
was also available the violin makers elsewhere in Europe, and
their violence don't sign anything like a stratovarry. So the
Little Ice Age theory, while still I think um out
there has I think that really kind of goes a

(25:58):
long way to undermining it. Yeah, like they were. People
were really excited about that at first, and I think
they're like, yes, not proof. It's a cool theory. It
is cool, little sage. There's another dude at Texas A
and M I named Joseph uh Naga Varry Nagy Varry.
What a unique name, uh. And he said, it's all

(26:20):
about this varnish, this cremonese, cremin varnish. Is that not right? Yeah?
I think that's what they say, start your warning right with.
So he published an article in Scientific Journal Public Library
of Science one. It's capitalized for some reason, and he says,

(26:42):
you know what's going on here, it's this it's this
varnish that he used. Let me analyze it chemically, and
what he found out was it's very unique and that
it has these things in there that you would not
expect to be being a varnish, like borax and chromium.

(27:02):
And he said, so, what I think is going on
is this stuff. He added this stuff to the varnish
to protect it that would against damage an infestation, But
what it really did was actually weakened the wood and
made it porous, uh, where it should not be. And
that created more tone, a more booming, rich, powerful tone,

(27:25):
and a lot of pushback his well, his theories not
entirely out of left field, Like it's it's pretty much
accepted that if you put the wrong kind of varnish
on a violin, it's going to ruin the sound. So
his whole thing was, well, why couldn't you stumble upon
some varnish that actually enhanced the sound? And that was
his idea, that that's that accounted for strata varies violin

(27:47):
sounding like that. Um, yeah, I think he did get
a lot of pushback. There seems to be even if
he's right, there seems to be a desire among the
people who collect and play strata various vi lens is
that it will never understand what makes it special. We
don't really want to know what will make it special. Um.

(28:07):
There's a guy who was widely quoted, Um, he's a
violinist from America's names, James EANs Ends EANs Man. Uh, Well, James.
His whole his whole view is that he's played a
number of strativarious violins and other stringed instruments, and he

(28:29):
said that there's probably a thousand things that make them
special and we can never possibly know what all those
thousand things are and there's never just gonna be just
this one thing. That is the key to what made
Strata various violence so great. Yeah, I think, Um, I
watched the BBC documentary that was really pretty great and
um they interviewed another violin maker and he said, you know,

(28:53):
it was the right place, right time. Thing like this
guy came along. Maybe they had this good wood that
was special, maybe had this varnish that was special. Um. Yeah,
but they were in the hands of somebody special too. Well.
That was his point was was that other people were
using some of these same things and they turned out
very different. He said he was so good at what

(29:14):
he did, Like that's the secret. He was just better
at doing this than other people. Right, Like how Chris
Bosh and Dwayne Wade brought the best out of Lebron James. Well,
where I think this Texas A and M Professor um
aired was that he was so bold as to even
posit the idea that it may have been an accident,

(29:35):
and that like I would say, bold is an appropriate term. Yeah,
Like they turned out this good on accident. He didn't
know this varnish was going to do that, or the
wood may have been even pre treated with these chemicals,
and he kind of looked into what it ended up being,
and not that he wasn't talented, but like that's why
they are what they are. And people were like, who blasphemy, Yeah,

(29:56):
out heretic. So how much of these things cost a lot?
The end I saw, I mean, the numbers are all
over the place, Like one thing will say that the
the record was three point five four four million dollars,
and then later on the record was broken with three
point six million dollars with the monitor Strata Various, owned

(30:17):
famously by Milwaukee brewer Paul Mollitor. That's where that one
got its name. Well, yeah, I agree, And then this
says in June two thousand fourteen, the creates Are had
a pre sale estimate of seven and a half million
to ten million, but it failed to reach the reserve price. Right,
But then later on another one sold in two thousand
eleven for sixteen millions. So apparently nobody's really keeping tabs here.

(30:41):
I looked down the internet. I couldn't find anything approaching
a comprehensive list of how much these things have gone for.
But the fact is millions of dollars, tens of millions
in some cases from what I understand, and there are collectors,
very very wealthy collectors who are driving the price of
strata various viol It's another streams through the roof where

(31:03):
if you were smart enough to buy one for a
few hundred thousand dollars thirty years ago, it's worth easily
ten twenty times that now. Yeah, and it's kind of
a shame that these aren't in the hands of the
great players of the world. You know, Well, they're in
the hands of the great players of the world who
come from very wealthy families. Yeah, or who like you said,
bought one twenty or thirty years ago, right, and that's there,

(31:24):
you know, their go to But yeah, it's just it's
just another fat piggy thing to to buy and own
and possess. The one I have is the most expensive one, um. Fortunately,
the one that's so it's so valuable that it's frequently
cited as priceless is the Messiah and that is owned
by the Ashmolean at Oxford University, so that one's not

(31:47):
up for grabs, which is cool because all the other
ones are just operating under that level. Yeah, And the
lady in the BBC documentary is of violin. It's since
you got to hold the Messiah with gloves, and it's
called that because there's a Nativity seen in laid on
the back. I believe. Oh, I don't think it's the back.
I think it's in the little tail piece. Um. But
this thing is gorgeous and she was allowed to hold

(32:09):
it with gloves is like white cotton gloves. And the
whole time, even though I knew that wouldn't happen, I
was like, don't drop it, you know, those slippy little
cotton gloves, And it just made me nervous watching it.
Did you ever see that video of things that were
very expensive things that were accidentally broken that I made
years back? I remember that. It's just like it was

(32:30):
tough to tough to make to uh So over the years,
there's been many, many, many many fakes. Uh As as
soon as he died, they started pumping out um forgeries
and not even forgeries, like just mass produced violins that

(32:50):
they would throw a label on that at the time,
in the nineteenth century, eighteenth and nineteenth century, the people
buying the violins knew that they were like knockoff manufactured fakes,
largely in Germany, right, right, But they weren't like, um, yeah,
they weren't. They weren't being duped. It was like this
is this is in the style of Strativarius or whatever. Yeah,

(33:14):
largely in Germany, in Czechoslovakia. And the thing is, though,
is over time these what are now pretty old violins
because they were again made in the eighteenth and nineteenth century,
they had labels on them that would say like Strativarius
crimonisis facto and then say like sixteen seventy nine or

(33:36):
something like that. Right, So, if you find one of
these violins and your attic and it looks pretty old,
it literally says an Italian this violin was made by
Strativarius in sixteen seventy nine, you could be forgiven to
think that you have just found a Strativarius violin and
all of your money problems are over. You can go

(33:58):
buy more meth than you'll ever be able to do
in your entire life. It might say made in Germany too, though,
that's a big giveaway, it is. And apparently, if you're
an appraiser of this kind of thing, you are so
sick of people calling you that you can't even hide
it when you're interviewed in an article. Yeah. The one
guy even said that. Um, he's like, people get angry
when you tell them it's not he said, because they

(34:20):
think they got a lottery ticket and you have to
break it to him. And he said they get mad
on these phone calls and they're like, well, do you
have tony bucks from men? That's pretty funny. Uh, do
you got anything else? Yeah. If you find a violin
and you look it over and it says strativarius, and
you look even further and it doesn't say Maide in Germany.

(34:42):
If it doesn't say that, I know, but it's still
probably a fake. Well you can. Um, there's a Smithsonian
article about it that has basically step by step what
you can do and who you can submit photos to
to get it basically pre appraise, well not appraise, but
just looked at. And they can usually tough from the
photos like, no, that's a fake. E step one. Uh,

(35:03):
leave it out in the sun and let it let
it get rained on a couple of times if ants
are attracted to it exactly. Um. Yeah. But one of
the appraisers makes the point like they're about six and
fifty in the world and they're all basically accounted for.
We know where they are. Yeah, and even when we
don't know where they are, we know we would know

(35:25):
the ones that we don't know where they are when
they surface. The stolen one. Yeah, there was one that
was famously stolen um thirty something years ago from a
concert violinist and it was a strato various and uh
it was in the attic of a Milwaukee thieves house
and I guess he died and his girlfriend took it
to an appraiser who's like, uh, this is stolen. I

(35:46):
know who's this is. So it's a very small community.
So the idea that somebody's just gonna walk up with
like a real strata varius that had previously been unknown
is is most likely not gonna happen. Yeah. The one
of the other appraisers said, it's like finding a new rembrand.
He said, we know what he painted, we know where

(36:07):
they are. Um, now they've got computers painting rembrands. Oh yeah,
I remember that. I think a guy left his strata
in the cab a few years ago too, was it,
Joshua Bell? It sounds like something that I would do. Way,
I can't remember. I believe that happened, though, remember you
get it back. I think so only in New York, right, jeez?

(36:28):
Can you imagine no, because again like these are concert
violinists who have almost been entrusted by humanity with these
things like here, this is a very expensive violin. Yes,
but we are giving this to you because we think
you will enrich this and with your playing, um and
maybe someday it'll be called your last name Strata various.

(36:50):
Play it well, don't leave it in the back of
a cab. And then that guy had to get on
craig'list and by hundred dollar fiddle right yep to play
first chair at the Philharmonic. Uh, chuck, Yes, you got
anything else? I got nothing else. I don't either. Good
job putting this together, man. Thanks. Uh. If you want

(37:12):
to know more about Strata Barius, you can search the internet, fork,
because we don't have an article on how stuff works.
Since I said, uh, Internet, it's time for a listener,
mel Ah. This is what we call this from my
good buddy Becks. Rebecca Bloomfield. She's uh, one of my
my pin pals from the stuff you should not want

(37:34):
see in prison over the years. She sure is. No,
she's not. She's a delight though, h and she backed
me up on my comments about women in science, so
I felt good about it, so I wanted to read it.
She made me feel better. I hope you guys had
a great time in the UK. By the way, she
just missed our show and uh, I think in London

(37:55):
by a couple of days, since she was very bummed out.
Does she live there? Was she visiting? I think visiting?
She now lives some rounds. Uh, So she said, I
know you did. I just listened to the delightful history
of steam. Anyway, I'm righting to say bloody well done.
Uh is that a curse word? I think like it's like, um,
very okay, great? Uh, well done Chuck on your comment

(38:18):
on what we could have achieved of women had been
allowed into the stem fields from the start. I know
this sort of comment could be a mine field for
a guy, but I can assure you you made your
point really well. I'm normally the first to jump on
non feminist comments or man splaining. That's what I was
afraid of. So she said, I'm usually the first to
jump on the man splaining, And when you said it,
I just said, yes, yes, Chuck, very loudly. In my office.

(38:41):
I even startled the dogs. Raising children is very important,
but men can do it too. All humans of any
gender should have a choice as to what they do
with their lives that should not be predetermined because of
their gender. So good on you, Chuck. Makes me happy
to know that the next generation of women are being
raised by men like you. And that's from Beck's Bloomfield
and she is a graphic designer for Little Red Robot

(39:03):
Design shout out and just a nice lady. Nice. Well,
thanks a lot, Bex. Can I call her that? Or
should I just call her Rebecca? You're you're in the club? Okay, Well,
thanks a lot, Becks for that email and for um shouting.
We appreciate that kind of thing. If you want to
get in touch with us, you can tweet to us

(39:24):
at s Y s K podcast or Josh Underscore um
Underscore Clark. You can hang out with us at Charles W.
Chuck Bryant on Facebook or Super Josh Clark on Facebook
or Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You
can also send us an email to Stuff podcast at
how Stuff Works dot com and is always joined us
at at home on the web. Stuff you Should Know
dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics.

(39:52):
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