Has anyone heard of the luthier, Elek Bela?

December 28, 2007 at 02:30 AM · Hungarians, like many Asians, put their family names first, and given names after. The name in our style would be Bela Elek. Tarisio has had a couple of his violins up for sale. I don't subscribe so I don't know what they fetched.

There were two Sandor Eleks (father and Son) from the same town as Bela, both Twentieth Century makers. The elder, at least, was reputed to be a pretty good maker, and lived into the 1960's. With the same family name, and from the same town, one might presume a family connection.

December 29, 2007 at 04:33 AM · Thank-you for the reply; I went back and looked at the Tarisio auctions, I'm not a subscriber either, so I couldn't get that much info. Anyway, it sounds nice, so I'll just go on practicing. Maybe one day I'll come across a Hungarian who'll know of him!

December 29, 2007 at 05:31 AM · Goodness, Michael, you beat me to the punch...I was also going to mention that peculiar tendency Hungarians have to switch around their given name and family name. Other than that I got nothing on this guy--sorry.

December 29, 2007 at 02:51 PM · The Hungarian school is quite good, in my opinion, quite Italian in style, and Hungarian instruments are underated, I think. Perhaps many of them bear sound Italian labels today.

February 3, 2014 at 08:19 PM · Hello, Catherine! Now, by reading you post I can tell you that my grandfather's name was Bela Elek. He was a violinst. He then lived in Slovakia. I don't know if there's an exact match, but it sounds it may be related. :-) If you like, we can keep in touch to see if there're more details. :-) Regards, Laura

February 3, 2014 at 09:44 PM · Never a great idea to put too much trust in labels. Did you purchase the violin directly from Bela? If so, that might mean something, if you saved the document trail.