Bow Fever

It may have been a mistake to show Nicodemus the cello bows on eBay. But bows of pernambuco, a rain forest wood, are getting hard to come by, even if you make your own. A blank piece of wood can cost several hundred dollars. Only pernambuco or Brazil wood can endure the necessary bending and then resume its shape. A good wood bow can run more than fifteen hundred dollars, with old bows by famous makers running into the high thousands. Which is why some string players are resorting to carbon fiber bows these days.

Victor Fetique a Paris, the eBay ad said. Starting at one dollar. A strange light came into Nicodemus' eyes, and before it was all over, he had won the Victor Fetique for $76, plus handling, shipping and insurance. "The fittings alone are worth more than that," he said.

When the bow arrived in the mail, we held our breath for a moment. It didn't really look like much, but there were no obvious cracks or flaws. "Here is a repair," N said. "This part is original." He weighed the bow and checked its balance point, still reserving judgment. "I think it might be a useful bow," he said.

We researched it a bit after the fact and found that the archetier or bowmaker Victor Fetique was known during his lifetime more for quantity than quality, that his bows were stamped Vtor, not Victor, that there were German copies around, that the real thing was going for $10,000 or more. (Our bow was stamped "Victor".)

N took the bow apart and looked at its innards. All was well. Better than well, in fact. "This bow was used in a pit orchestra," he said. "They would put the bow behind the strings, and you could see the marks of the strings on the frog (the black part where you hold the bow)."

"When a bow has been used to applaud someone by banging it on the music stand, you can see the little nicks in the wood."

So finally he began playing the cello with the new bow. "This is pretty good," he said. And he played some more, and then some more. After an hour or so, he said "This is fantastic. This bow is too good to be a fake."