Smallest violin in world sold
WHAT has been claimed to be the world’s smallest violin – crafted by a Tyneside engineer – has sold for £450 at auction.
Retired engineer Robert Moodie, 74, of Beechwood Avenue in Low Fell, Gateshead, had read how an Austrian instrument maker had crafted the smallest violin at two inches in length.
Robert was determined to beat the record and, seven months of painstaking work later, he had produced a violin one eighth of an inch tinier than his rival.
Now the miniature violin and bow, in the dustproof protective case which Robert also made because he considered the instrument too delicate to handle, has been sold by Tennants Auctioneers.
Mr Moodie took up violin making at the age of 50, and at the time of making the miniature version had made 18 full-size instruments.
He started work on the miniature in 1944 and he had to remake many of the parts repeatedly until they were perfect.
The violin is complete with real gut strings, shaved down to almost invisible fineness, and an accompanying bow. It is sold with a hand-drawn diagram of measurements. Of his instrument-making hobby he said: “I only regret that I started later in life as I find the craft very fascinating.”
His also made an Aeolian harp which can be “played” by the passage of air through being positioned outdoors or through an open window.
Also in the sale was a tuning fork keepsake from the Tyne-built cruiser HMS Sheffield, which was involved in the operation to sink the German battleship Bismarck.
The fork was used on the ship’s bell of the cruiser, which was launched by Armstrong Whitworth in 1936 at the Low Walker shipyard in Newcastle.
In the Bismarck operation, Sheffield narrowly avoided being sunk by 11 torpedoes dropped by Swordfish aircraft from HMS Ark Royal, which had mistaken the cruiser for the German warship
HMS Sheffield’s eventful wartime record including sinking one of Bismarck’s tankers, and the German supply ship Kota Penang, before taking up escort duties on Arctic convoys
In the Battle of the Barents Sea when a convoy was attacked by a strong German surface force, Sheffield sank the German destroyer Frierich Eckoldt, and also damaged the cruiser Admiral Hipper.
She was later part of the force which sank the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst. The ship was broken up in 1967.