Stamped TOURTE Ivory Frog Pernambuco Trade Bow- Markneukirchen circa 1900 – SOLD 2 APRIL 2024 –

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We have a very nice stamped German trade bow made at the beginning of the 20th century. The bow is really cool and I love the bow. For a while I thought about putting this stick in my own personal collection for playing Scottish fiddling music. My wife reminded me that I have enough bows.

Historically, Markneukirchen was the hub of the German string trade for centuries. Because of the tremendous growth in violin making during the 1800’s the bow trade followed and became just as well known. In this period many bow making families flourished, employing hundreds of craftsmen to meet the need for bows. This is one of those bows from a family shop. It is old pernambuco wood, slightly dark, firm in makeup, and shows no flaws. We meticulously went over the entire bow replacing the tip, the leathers, a total deep cleaning, and French polishing the stick to bring this bow back to playing condition. The winding was done long ago in sterling silver and is still very functional. Sterling silver is expensive, so we decided to leave the sterling after cleaning it up. The frog and endscrew are in nickel mounts. The ivory frog is old and beautifully discolored from many years of playing. The three-piece endscrew with the longer middle ebony section and the ivory/ebony inlay frog I have seen in old catalogs from the Nürnberger workshop. This is my educated guess on the bow’s origin but I’m not 100 % sure so I’m not going there. All in all, it is still a great stick. German trade bow, older darker pernambuco, round section, nickel mounts and an ivory frog. Yup, I love the bow. The bow is balanced well and feels light in the hand with weight of 64.0 grams.

Weight fully haired 64.0 grams.