Upton French vs. Gollihur?

[jgeary]

Hi all,
I'd like to pick up an inexpensive French bow. I have an Upton (inexpensive) German and it is quite acceptable. Any thoughts on the $99 Upton French vs. the $250 Gollihur French (which is pernambuco, vs. brazilwood) would be appreciated. I'm a new bass player - playing on an EUB for now as I'll be traveling all year. I'm only working on the basics at this point.

Thanks in advance,
Jill

[JeffKissell]

PM sent

There a few threads comparing/contrasting these two bow sources. You can do a search in this forum using Upton and Gollihur and french bow.
-J

[Jim Skladany]

Originally Posted by jgeary

Hi all,
I'd like to pick up an inexpensive French bow. I have an Upton (inexpensive) German and it is quite acceptable. Any thoughts on the $99 Upton French vs. the $250 Gollihur French (which is pernambuco, vs. brazilwood) would be appreciated. I'm a new bass player - playing on an EUB for now as I'll be traveling all year. I'm only working on the basics at this point.

Thanks in advance,
Jill

Hi Jill:
Goggle "The String Emporium". $130 French and Germany bows. I have owned bows that would be worth thousands of dollars. I don't know how they do it, but the $130 sticks honestly compare with them. The workmanship is excellent the service "A+". Please check this site out.
Good Luck: Jim

[Adrian Cho]

Try the yitamusic bows on eBay. Look for the auctions that start at $1. I have two great Snakewood bows I got that way - one is a German that cost me about $200 and the other is a Baroque-style bow that was about $120. Excellent value for money.

[Silversorcerer]

It used to be hard to find a decent low-priced wooden bow, but now they seem to be coming out of the woodwork.

I had two of the brazilwood German Gollihur bows and these were not great but for the price, very hard to beat at the time. And dealing with Bob has always been a pleasure. I still use my favorite of the two as a spare and I've had it rehaired, dropped it, broke the frog, had it repaired, etc. It's stood up to bar-room abuse very well, kept its' camber and certainly there is nothing to complain about.

In addition to Upton and others mentioned, Ken Smith also has an inexpensive line of bows worth looking into.

I don't think in the lower price range Pernam. vs. Brazil is a deal breaker. It's the same tree, just slightly different color and section of the tree.

Adrian's advice is good, but be careful about anything you get from e-bay and check out the seller as well as the product. There are great deals there as well as scams. With much due respect (and I read all of his posts because of this), Adrian has a great deal of experience that informs his shopping.