Notes:

"Rubinoff acquired the "Maurin" Stradivarius, built in 1731, in the late 1920s or 1930s from the Wurlitzer Co., acting as an agent for instrument collector Nathan E. Posner. According to the book How Many Strads? by Ernest Doring, recently republished by Bein & Fushi, Posner bought the violin from a woman in Paris. It was known as the "Maurin," presumably named after a famous late 19th-century French violinist, Jean Pierre Maurin.

Mrs. Rubinoff recalled that the violin had been carried out of Russia before the 1917 revolution by the czar's family, hence the name by which Rubinoff called it, the "Romanoff" Strad. Neither Fushi nor the book mentions a Russian history, however. Mrs. Rubinoff said the czar's family sold it to a French courtesan. This part of the story meshes with that in the Doring book, though the timing may not.

Fushi believes that Rubinoff had two copies of the original made, that the copies were good, and that the actual Strad may have been sold about 25 years ago to someone in Japan. He offered to authenticate and appraise the violin Mrs. Rubinoff has."