Elida

BOWS
(other than Glasser)

 Elida Trading
ELIzabeth and DAvid Ward
Email us  Tel: 01484 428518

WE HAVE SOME SCHROETTER VIOLIN AND CELLO BOWS - WHEN THEY'RE GONE, THEY'RE GONE - MODELS: VIOLIN AS24V (3/4 ONLY) £20 AS26V (3/4 ONLY) £40 CELLO AS22C (3/4 ONLY) £25 AS24C (4/4 AND 3/4 ONLY) £35 AS26C (4/4 AND 3/4 ONLY) £50

STROE SANDU (GLIGA) PERNAMBUCO VIOLIN BOWS £100/£120 (4/4 AND 3/4 USUALLY IN STOCK, OTHERS TO ORDER) VIOLA £120/£150 CELLO £150/£200 (4/4 USUALLY IN STOCK, OTHERS TO ORDER). THESE OCTAGONAL STICK BOWS ARE LOVE OR HATE! FEW ARE NEUTRAL ABOUT THEM

WE ALWAYS HAVE BOWS IN STOCK WHICH ARE NOT LISTED HERE. USUALLY UP TO £200/£300 (THOUGH YOU WILL FIND THAT OUR BOWS ARE COMPARABLE TO MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE BOWS FROM OTHER SOURCES). WE ARE ALWAYS WILLING TO SEND A TUBE OF FIVE ON APPROVAL.

Up to a certain price and level it is customary for instruments to be sold as part of outfits also including a bow, case and rosin, but beyond that it is the norm to sell these components separately in order to give more flexibllity and freedom to meet a player's exact requirements.

With a student outfit the first thing (apart from the strings) that will need to be changed is the bow. Competitive forces act strongly to keep outfit prices down and the quality of bow is limited by the need to reduce the overall cost of the outfit. Liz recalls passing Grade 8 with her Poller viola but recalls that the bow that came with the outfit ceased to be usable by Grade 4 and she was reduced to borrowing from school cupboards! Those bows were little better of course and three successive teachers begged her to buy a new one. None of them suggested the viola had to be replaced; it was with the bow that the trouble lay. In short, if you need to upgrade and have only a limited budget you would do best to upgrade the bow.

That experience has led Liz to be rather sensitive about bows and the need to have a sufficiently good one. So it is that with her quality controller's hat on all our bows come under close scrutiny!

We regularly find that even brand new bows are bent when they arrive although the bend is usually very slight and the result of bad hairing. Many retailers will happily sell these but we don't. If they are not good enough, we do not sell them. This means a fair amount of wastage (and lost money) but that's the standard we work to. It also means that if you are prepared to buy a bow and have it rehaired (or put up with a slight bend insufficient to affect playing until you get it rehaired) then we might have just the bargain for you! Simply ask. We have so many we do not bother listing them.

This page is devoted to wood bows but we also sell Glasser bows which are made of fibreglass, advanced composite material or carbongraphite for details of which please click here. We think the Glasser bows are excellent and recommend you take a look. For traditionalists we carry a selection of wood bows, mainly in brazilwood and pernambuco. Pernambuco is accepted as the finest wood for bows and we rely upon our suppliers to accurately describe the wood they use but we suspect that there are even makers who cannot give guarantees about the wood they are using. We can however guarantee that whatever bow you buy from us will be carefully checked and will be good value.

Our search for a reliable source of straight bows goes on and as a result of our efforts so far we have a large number of bows from various sources, usually up to about £150, which may or may not become part of our regular stock. If you would like a selection of them, up to five in number, and care to call us with your credit card number (which will of course only be debited if you buy any of them or fail to return them!) then we should be able to arrange it. Indonesians need not apply

At present our regular range of wood bows (shown below) is entirely Chinese, though we have a fair number of "one-offs" from Germany, Romania and Czech Republic. Do not let the fact that these bows are Chinese put you off: our customers love them!