Last night as I was biking home from my parents, I saw what I was decently certain was a violin case in a second hand furniture shop. Today I swung by to check it out, and look what I found!

Terribly dilapidated to be sure, but cool as! It has cracks here and there and the varnish is very worn. No strings, no bridge (I checked under the little flap too), broken string holder. And the neck has come off. The bow is in no better condition, with its broken screw and loose hairs. It's not octagonal but round, I don't know how common that is. But it seemed balanced enough, and not warped or anything. Lighter than my bow, I think, although that could have been due to the lack of hair...

The wood seems to be high quality, flamed maple back and tightly grained spruce. The soundpost is in place (a bit odd considering the general condition...!) No purfling, though. I don't even know if that means anything.

The belly and the back have an interesting shape, too. Okay, I'm no expert or anything, far from it, but it's not shaped like my violin. Much more steeply curved, both more convex at the middle (under the would-be strings) and more concave as you near the sides.

There's no text or note inside it, so I couldn't make out where it's from or how old it is. But it lives in a wonderful wooden case!

I think it's home built. The only marking I could find in the case was an imprint that seems to say "Göteborg" (Gothenburg). Someone has written things underneath the little flap of the small compartment, but the paper it was on is too torn to make anything out. The red stickers on the case say "Three parts" and "1890". I thought the number might be the price and said that seemed far too high ($290), but the bloke in the store said it might be the year it's from.

So, all you awesomely cool people who repair old fiddles, what do you make of it?