F C Pfretzschner *** Workshop Violin Bow – Sterling Mounts – West Germany circa 1960

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Stamped:

A German three-star workshop bow made in the early 1960’s. German makers generally used stars on their bows to signify different levels of quality with three stars being better than one. The pernambuco is octagonal-section, sterling silver mounted fittings, and black goat leather completing the winding. The bow was meticulously gone over in our workshop with a new bone tip, new leathers, and a new mother-of-pearl Mexican slide with a gorgeous blue/green hue. The frog has Parisian eyes with a three-piece end screw. The bow plays well with a supple mix of firmness and flex. I have had this bow in my collection since the late 1970’s. On weekends when I was a young guy in my high school years I was out collecting violins and bows with my father who took me everywhere collecting instruments and bows at estates, sales, and auctions. I grew up in the New York/New Jersey area where there were 8-10 million people so there were many sales to go to. I have earnestly sought to work on my collection of pernambuco bows since COVID. Check out all the older bows in the collection. Currently, I am on a 5-8 bows a month completion pace.

The stick is a dense piece of wood. It has tighter ring growth from a slower growing tree; therefore, the bow has nice strength. The wood choice is above average, and I love the grain of the wood. The stick has a slight hint of yellow fleck in the wood grain, almost typical of bows that were made in the W. Seifert shop (circa 1950-1980). My educated guess is that it was made in the Seifert shop and came from their extensive wood pile. Various names were stamped on workshop bows, especially when makers were trying to increase their sales and production recovering economically after a world war. German quality workmanship with a fair price to sell.

Weight fully haired 63.0 grams