This instrument is featured as part of our 2023 Contemporary American Makers Exhibition and Sale

soloistic sound

James Wimmer is a master violin maker who resides in California. As a young adult James established a jug band and started to perform locally. After a few lineup changes, their repertoire changed to string band music and blues. They wound up taking their act to Germany and finding plenty of work. As a result, Jim wound up staying there for a prolonged period of time and decided to take work as an apprentice violin maker with master craftsman Wolfgang Uebel. James paid his dues and absorbed valuable information from this well established craftsman. He also spent some time in the shop of another master craftsman Herbert Rainer Knobel. After returning to the Unites States, James opened his shop in 1986 and started producing fine concert quality violins.

From the consignor:
"You may notice that the fingerboard looks different in these [older] photos. When I first commissioned the cello, I asked Jim [Wimmer] to give it a baroque-style fingerboard, and it was beautiful, but after a few years I realized it made playing in the upper registers difficult so I had him replace it with a more standard size. The third [concert] photo was taken during a performance I gave with it in Sun Valley, Idaho in 2000. Lastly, there's the picture of YoYo holding it with me after a recital I gave in 1996 which he attended.”

Measurements:

Length of back: 78.0cm

Lower bout: 46.0cm

Upper bout 36.0cm

Center bout: 25.2cm

AME6CL