This beautiful little double bass was my first serious instrument, bought in Australia around 1993. Before this I had a factory half size double bass, which for the time was very unusual. It allowed me to start playing earlier than was possible in Australia at that point, but when it came time to buying a bigger bass I didn’t want anything too much bigger. This bass, with a 40″ string length, saw me through college and I hung on to it as my second instrument for a very long time. Depending on who you spoke to, it was either a Mathias Hornsteiner, or maybe a J A Baader, but it was generally agreed to be from the early 19th Century. This bass was certainly made with beautiful wood by a master craftsman in Mittenwald. Sadly I needed to sell the instrument in 2011.