Early Don Messer fiddle used on radio show to be sold at N.S. auction

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/07/2006 (7385 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

HALIFAX (CP) – It was kept in a numbered box for almost 30 years, played by no one as it sat in a quiet, climate-controlled room in the local archives.

But now, one of Don Messer’s first fiddles will be taken out of its battered wooden case and sold at a Nova Scotia auction, where organizers are hoping to fetch upwards of $7,000.

“It makes me a little sad . . . but maybe someone who will play it and really enjoy it, will get it,” Dawn Messer Attis, the fiddling legend’s daughter, said in a recent interview.

“My dad would be very pleased that a fiddler had a little piece of history from him.”

The fiddle, built in 1929 and bought by Messer a year later for $105, was given to the Nova Scotia Archives three decades ago after the legendary musician died of a heart attack in 1973.

Messer, one of the early stars of Canadian television, hosted the popular CBC program Don Messer’s Jubilee from 1958 to 1969. He built a huge following, particularly in eastern Canada, with his home-spun brand of what he called “way-down East” music.

Years before he landed on national TV, the New Brunswick-born musician who started out at age 7 playing barn dances and weddings, amassed a collection of fiddles that he played in small towns and on radio shows.

The plain brown fiddle being sold on July 23 is a copy of a Stradivarius, the famous stringed instruments made by Italian Antonio Stradivari in the late 1600s. It bears a few subtle signs that it was played by Messer: the fingerboard is slightly worn and there a couple of nicks from Messer’s days plucking away on a radio show in Saint John, N.B., in the 1930s.

“It’s showing some wear and tear from being that old,” said Keith Ross, an old-time fiddler who will play Messer’s violin at the auction in Coldbrook, N.S.

“As a fiddle, it’s nice. It’s not great, but it’s where it came from that will bring bidders.”

Messer kept a note in the case saying he thought it was “very responsive” and that he was happy with it after playing it for about five years before switching over to a new one.

His daughter said she decided to put it up for auction after one of her father’s 14 fiddles was sold to the highest bidder two years ago for $8,000. Some of his others have been given to friends, while Attis has one of his favourites tucked under her bed in a box she will eventually pass on to her son.

Attis, 72, said her family had considered putting Messer’s keepsakes in a museum that could display his plaques, awards, records, sheet music and other memorabilia. But she felt there was already enough of his material on view at the archives and that people could possibly get more use of his instruments if they owned them.

Still, parting with the fiddle has left her a little melancholy.

“I hope people get the mementoes and appreciate them, but I don’t want to see them go,” she said from her home in Nine Mile River, N.S.

“I don’t feel I’m being disrespectful . . . because one of my father’s favourite expressions was, ‘a good instrument has to be played.’ ”