We Use PayPal for Credit Card Orders to Keep Our Prices Low!
PayPal is a no cost easy to use service for our customers.
PayPal is the most secure and safest method of internet credit card payment available todate! Your purchases are insured up to $100,000 against fraud or theft.
This page is dedicated to the Master Craftsmen of string instruments from Luby u Chebu Czechoslovakia
The five hundred year tradition in the making of musical instruments in a small West Bohemian town near Cheb became, after 1955, the basis of the concentrated manufacture of string instruments.
When the accomplishments of honest work and the successes recorded on the domestic and international market resulted in the need to expand and modernize production, the construction of a new plant in 1968 shaped the foundation for new expansion and improvement of the manufacture of musical instruments.
The combination of the traditional workmanship of highly skilled workers with advanced technology of peak world standard is the reason for the increasingly high popularity of Czechoslovak made musical instruments and of confidence in them on all continents.
The master string instruments made at Luby by master violin and double-bass makers carry the traditional label of products of the "Luby Master Instruments School". Master violinmakers like Muller, Wilfer, Potzl, Neudorfer and others helped to establish this concept in the past. After 1945, the ranks of highly skilled makers of string instruments were joined by masters from the interior of the country, like B. Pechar, J. Mrkvicka, B. Hrib and J. Vavra, who helped to establish the present staff of the master violin-makers of Luby by their own products and by educating the young generation of master violin-makers.
Emil Lupac
04/10/1935 Horni Myslova okr. Trest
Emil Lupac's interest in music brought him at the early age of ten to a school of music where he studied violin and clarinet playing. From there he went to the apprentice school at Luby, where his instructors were the master viloin-makers J. Vavra, J. Potzl and J. Mrkvicka. After graduating with extraordinarily high marks from the apprentice school, where his talent received full recognition, he was enrolled in the two-year post graduate school whre master viloin-maker, J. Potzl developed the talents of his students to a higher degree of perfection and initiated them in the mysteries of designing instruments individually. After graduation, Lupac produced his first concert violin in the Cremona plant, then went on to improve his skills at the four-year course for prospective master vilolin-makers under the two great practitioners of the art, Vavra and Wilfer. After winning the title of "The Plant's Best Worker" several times, Lupac took special examinations and was placed in 1972 in the category of Master violinmaker.
For his high quality work, Emil Lupac has won:
- Diplomas from the H. Wieniawski International Contests at Poznan in the years of 1962, 1967, 1977 and 1981.
- International Contest in Italy - Diplomas for a Violin and for a Viola in 1976, in the year 1979 - Diplomas for a violin and for a violoncello
- International Contest in the USA in 1978 - Certificates for work and for tone qualities of a violin and
certificate for work on a viola.
- 2nd Prize in the Viola category and 4th Prize in the violin category in the 1973 master instrument sound
tests.
- 3rd Prize in the Violin and Viola categories in the 1974 master instruments sound tests.
Lupac makes instruments to his own model designed after instruments by Stradivari and Guarneri.
Current Instruments Available
by Emil Lupac:
Violin 4/4 (6) Units available $7,500 each
Violin 3/4 (1) Unit available $7,200 each
Karel Zadrazil
26/11/1935 Hroby,okr. Tabor
A quarter of a century ago, the outstanding master violinmakers J. Vavra, J. Potzl and J. Mrkvicka were the first to help develop the talent of Karel Zadrazil a young apprentice from Southern Bohemia. At the two-year post graduate school for the best students from the trade school, Zadrazil confirmed his intention to become a master vioin-maker. Practical work in the concert violin workshop and the four-year course under Vavra and Wilfer trained Zadrazil for the post of specialist instructor in the Luby school for apprentices. He was awarded the title of master violin-maker after passing the "Supreme Examination" - i.e., making a violin under Vavra and Potzl and a cello under Neudorfer.
Karel Zadrazils work has won the following awards:
- "Best Worker in the Musical Instruments Industry"
- "Best Worker in te Ministry's Competence"
- Diploma from the H. Wieniawskego Contest at Poznan
- State distinction "For Excellent Work" - 1963
- Order of Work - 1981
- International contest in Italy in 1976 - diplomas for a violin and for a viola
- International Contest in the USA in 1978 - 2 certificates for violins, diploma for a viola.
- Exhibition of Arts and Craft in Munich, FRG, in 1979 - diploma for participation
- International Contest at Cremona, Italy, in 1979 - diploma for a violin and for a violoncello
- 3rd prize for the tone of a Viola at the Louise Spohr competition at Kassel, GDR, 1983
Zadrazil makes his instruments to classical designs modified to his own model. The colour of his instruments corresponds to the type of wood used.
