Stradavarius violins set a style standard in certain types of construction.
There are thousands of violins with the Stradavarius name inside without
"in the style of" or "copy of" or any other explanation. Any music
repairman (my sister does this for a living) will tell you hundreds of
stories of folks walking in with a Strad under their arm only to walk out
with a fiddle. I introduced my sister to one of the Curators at the
Smithsonian a few years ago and he showed her the Strad collection. His
word to her was that (she was inquiring for this same reason) the number of
real Strads are pretty well known and accounted for. I guess there is
always a chance of one popping up but the all-too-common answer is in the
above. If it is real, the Smithsonian folks will know.
 
Paul Apodaca
Bowers Museum
Santa Ana, CA
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