Hi AquaDoc,

Calm down, I think you’ve probably made a good purchase. 🙂 I’m speaking from personal experience here.  Decades ago, when I transitioned from my elementary school rent-to-buy 3/4 size beginner violin to a fullsize 4/4, my mom (accompanied by my knowledgeable violin teacher who played in the state symphony orchestra) bought me an old, used “Stainer”.  It served me well, all the way through junior and senior high school.  I still own it, although I now play a Fiddlerman “Master”.  Mine also has the mark “Stainer” burned into the back.

You may already know, but Jacobus Stainer was an accomplished 17th century master violin maker from, more or less, Austria.  For the next few centuries, other violin makers and violin manufacturers sold reproduction “Stainers” modeled after Stainer’s very desirable designs.  These were not fakes; they were reproductions, just as today the newly-made “Strads” and “Amatis” are popular.

If I were in your place, I would first gently shake the violin.  If there is a rattle inside of it,    then the sound post probably needs to be reset— that’s simple and routine. (I’ve done my own, but unless you work with wood and have a gentle touch, it’s best left to a luthier.) If the sound post is loose, I’d go straight to a luthier, get estimates, and have the sound post reset, plus get it looked over and new strings installed.  Also check for splits in the body, particularly the top plate.  The pictures don’t obviously show any. Splits would definitely need to be repaired.  If that gets too costly, go to plan Fiddlershop.

If the sound post is intact, let your daughter try it out- it will probably sound bad without new strings- but she should focus on how it FEELS to play it.  Is it comfortable to press the strings down, or does the action feel too high?  If the action feels too high, in other words if it takes too much pressure to press down the strings, then go to a luthier.  This, too, is a simple, routine adjustment.

If the sound post and action are good, I’d just put new strings on it— either Fiddlerman strings, about $32, or regular Visions, about $54.  If you’re not used to changing the strings (it takes a tiny bit of finesse), then see if her teacher will help her with this.  Whatever you do, DON’T remove all of the strings at once.  They need to be changed one at a time with careful attention to the position of the bridge.

Good luck with this instrument. It should bridge the gap until you and your daughter are ready for something else.   Fiddlershop definitely has great instruments that your daughter can aspire to.  If she does progress to something else, this “Stainer” can still serve as her “festival fiddle” or camping/traveling violin when she just wants to have fun playing outside.

My “Stainer” is estimated to be about 120 years old.  It is light as a feather compared to any mass-produced instrument made today. The neck is fine, comfortable, and a little thinner than the new instruments I own.  It has a decent tone overall, very mellow, with a lovely bass, and it doesn’t fall out in the upper registers.  Mine has several cracks in the top plate that I will repair eventually and they are affecting the tone.  My Fiddlerman Master, right now, has better tone and the Master resonates magnificently on every single note I play.

A lot depends on how your daughter progresses and how her interest holds, as well as your budget.  By age 12, my musical passion switched to guitar and the budget eventually went to a Martin which I have played for a lifetime.  I continued to play violin in school, but after high school graduation, I rarely played violin again until a few years ago.  The Stainer slept in a closet for more than four decades but it again served me well as I figured out whether I could remember anything about violin playing at all and if I indeed wanted to take up playing again.  Well, coming full circle, violin is now my passion and all those childhood  years on the Stainer are suddenly and surprisingly paying off in ways I never could have imagined.