There have been two court cases, in Tokyo and Philadelphia. Interpol is investigating with help front the Fraud Squad and the Foreign Office in this country and other authorities round the world.

The Entente Internationale des Maitres Luthiers et Archetiers d'Art (the International Society of Violin and Bow makers) has said it is appalled at the scandal, where full dimensions are as yet unknown it is the old story of a gullible public being taken in by the abuse of expertise.

Great violins sing with a finer tone than others. The instruments produced by the Stradivari, Guarneri and other Italian families of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have never been matched, though there are later fine makers. The value of violins has thus come to be largely dictated by the name of the maker, with date, tone condition and sentiment all playing a qualifying part.

How the forger adds his own text to a highly reputable letterhead -- the grammatical errors are obvious.
(Take from original article)

From the earliest times violin makers have recorded their names on labels inserted in their instruments showing also the place and date of manufacture. Human nature being what it is, for more than 300 years there has been a practice of putting good names in less good instruments.

Players have come to rely on the certificates of authenticity given by leading exerts in the trade, such as W.E. Hill & Sons and J. & A. Beare in this country, and other long established houses in Europe and America. Over the last decade these certificates have apparently been forged in Japan on a considerable scale and combined with old but run of the mill instruments to secure enormous prices.

Japanese dealers in art and antiques invaded London in the mid 1970s, buying pictures and works of art fairly indiscriminately in bulk. Violins were particularly popular. Japanese buyers were at times known to carry off up to 90 per cent of the mixed bag of instruments offered at Sotheby, Christie and Phillips auctions. At the time this appeared merely as an eccentric example of a general trend.

An odd occurrence in 1978 should have provided a warning. Sotheby's offered for sale a "forger's kit ", a collection of wood printing blocks engraved with good imitations of fine makers' labels. They were expected to fetch between £15 and £25 and the Entente Internationale asked to buy them before the auction to avoid their continued use. In the event two unnamed Japanese dealers bid the collection up to £700.  Sotheby s then got cold feet and collaborated with the Entente to buy them back.

The truth began to come out after the theft of five violins from a Tokyo music school in November 1979. They were insured for 78 million yen (about £180,000) but the insurance company discovered that the accompanying certificates had been forged to justify this appraisal. Interpol were soon involved since the certificates were purported to have been issued by leading violin makers in Europe and America.

Police arrested Yuko Kanda, a leading Tokyo instrument dealer who supplied Tokyo University and other music schools with violins. There was another dramatic twist to the affair in December 1981 when a noted violinist, Yoshio Unno, a professor at Tokyo University, was arrested for allegedly accepting bribes from Kanda.

Kanda appeared in court on April 28. He was charged with forging certificates, defrauding customers by misrepresentation, and with giving Professor Unon 1 million yen (£2,300) and a bow for recommending him to the university and to students.

Interpol's investigation had meanwhile led to the arrest of a Philadelphia instrument dealer, Adolph H. Primavera. He was charged two months ago with perjury by having denied that he had blank copies of certificates of authenticity for violins and having told a grand that he had given it all his correspondence with a Tokyo dealer Tokushiro Kaku. He was further charged with obstructing justice by telephoning a man named Ben Marcune and telling him to destroy blank certificates of authenticity.

Primavera is now cooperating with the FBI, and the two perjury charges will be dropped. He has pleaded guilty to the obstruction charge.

Andrew Hill is taking a particularly active interest in opening up the issue since forged examples of his firm's certificates are beginning to turn up in some numbers. Pepy's diary mentions his ancestors as London instrument makers and the firm is an accepted source of expertise on violins worldwide.

Some of the certificates appear to have bean forged simply with a photocopying machine. The letterhead and the signature from a genuine certificate have been retained with a false text inserted in the middle and photocopied. The copy is produced with the comment that the original is unfortunately lost. Other certificates indicate that W.E. Hill notepaper has been printed in Japan.

Japanese are not the only ones involved. Hill tells of being visited last year by a Belgian dealer who had dossiers on 12 violins for sale, each with an apparently forged certificate. The grammatical errors implied  a German source.

Geraldine Norman
Saleroom Correspondent