George Craske Double Bass

This is my most recent acquisition. A beautiful dark double bass by prolific English maker George Craske. It dates from the mid 19th Century, probably from his time in Birmingham where he had a shop at Snow Hill for about 20 years. Before that he was in Bath, and afterwards in Manchester. He trained with the Forsters in London in his early years before moving to Bath, where the music scene was busy for “the season”, and so the demand for instruments was high given the number of formal dances and concerts that were given by the multitude of musicians. Interestingly, even though his instrument output was extraordinarily high, there are surprisingly few examples of his double basses in circulation. This bass came to me as a five string conversion (likely by Davis in Birmingham, so quit early) and is currently being lovingly restored back to its original four string state by Dorset based luthier, Benjamin Taylor.