Since I had some spare time after visiting a trade show at Messe Berlin, I took a chance to visit…read morelocal violin shop/maker. After a quick search on Google (sorry, yelp did not help me for that), I happen to find the website. Interestingly, they have a branch (after talking to Mr. Werth, I found this location is more like a branch) in Los Angeles. The website looked decent in many ways, such as the site design, and more importantly the contents. So, I decided to visit the shop.
Although, I did understand good violin makers did not necessary have wide open welcoming shop front, I hesitated to enter his atelier when I saw the locked door. I could not even tell if the atelier was open or not. After all, this is a city that owns BPO. Entering professional atelier could end up with very miserable experience. Just a coincidence, a resident came back from somewhere and opened the locked door, and the lady (neighbor) said it was OK to visit the shop, so I rung the door bell (in the second floor. I mean one floor up from ground level).
Mr. Werth came to welcome us. I briefly introduced my background (amateur violin, viola player) and honestly say I had almost no chance to buy one here (at least today), but I was searching a violin or viola for my retirement. I was expecting graceful NO-ish reaction, but he seemed to be happy to help this one-off, no-reservation, unknown-skills customer.
I told my price range was 15-20K Euros. So, he showed me three violas in that range. They are all good ones, with different characters. He also showed a viola he made. It was really nice compare to the price he presented. For violin, I could not remember exactly, but I played 6 or 7 various ones.
Compare to violins in Japanese market (oh, I came from Japan), I thought all samples were really good. If I should buy one in the future, I may need to buy it outside of Japan. Sorry, I got off track.
Anyhow, Mr. Werth was very nice and professional. He offered to help me in the future if I had a chance to visit Berlin/his shop. I happen to have a chance to visit LA soon, so I may try to visit their branch in LA.
Conclusion. Professionalism, kindness, knowledge, good variety, high quality, reasonable (well, they are violins. Cannot be reasonable in normal way) price of instruments. Highly recommended. No problem to communicate in English.