c.1900 French-made Medio Fino 4/4 Violin

This cute fiddle is a customer's in for a light setup as well as a seam repair. One of the pegs had broken off in the pegbox, too, so I replaced that with an old spare from my big bag of old fiddle pegs.

It's branded "Medio Fino, made in France" and that's just where it was made. Apparently these were marketed by the "JTL" firm or Jerome Thibouville-Lamy of Mirecourt. They were budget instruments as can be told by the dyed-hardwood (rather than ebony) fingerboard and plainish appointments and materials. Still, it has a good, husky, mid-range and dry sort of tone that works quite well for double-stops and the high end isn't harsh or itchy to my ears.

The bridge was/is nicely cut on this instrument but the owner plays mostly fiddle music and it was clearly setup for classical. I recut it and now it's a much nicer machine for fiddle tunes.

Check out the intense finger-wear on the board! Oh my!

Fortunately, the strings ride just over the only "non-gouged" patches on the board, so it wasn't necessary for me to tell the owner that it was definitely time for a new board...

4 fine tuners is a little drastic for my taste, but it does make life easier. I like the small chinrest!

By the way, woods: spruce top, real purfling, lightly flamed maple on the back and sides.

The spalted (diseased) maple neck is effing cool, though! I barely ever see that pop up in violins!

...broken endpin, but still holding.

And there's the label!