Buying off the internet
It is generally agreed that buying violins and bows off the internet is a difficult proposition. However the chance of saving 50-200% on the purchase price makes it really an attractive proposition.
Part of the challenge is in the variability of the bows, needing advice on what makes a good bow, and what makes a good bow for you and your violin. Then there is the trust factor you get from a high street shop with its often European asthetics and polite helpful staff.
At the beginner to intermediate to advancing levels bow costs creep rapidly from sub $100 to nearly $1000 so its a significant investment. So what if there was a way around this?
Faced with just such a proposition myself I started looking into bows, what makes them work and reliable indicators to assess them. Fortunately for me people have been making violins and bows for hundreds of years, and while its still mostly an ‘art’ there is emerging some good science to help with bow selection. (NOTE: There is far more analysis done on violins that bow though). Armed with this knowledge I was able to select bows from where factory bows are mostly made today….. China. Then by using some fairly straightforward criteria quantify better how they perform in terms of bow I already have of varying quality. Its worked well for me and my family and have formed some nice relationships with the manufacturers in the process.