Jwillis

Vision titanium solo will brighten up. I find them very responsive

I love how the bows suspend!

Depends on the price. If it was set up well and the kid just loved it why not. Assuming he continued playing through his life he most likely would move on at some point to another fiddle

Yes and the weight can change the balance for the positive or negative. I personally like the feel of whalebone

I suppose it depends on what your definition of what the best is. If you are talking about playing characteristics then that is extremely subjective. One bow may sound fab on one violin and mediocre on another. But like violins value is not always dependent on how a something plays. It depends on what it is. So sure, you can find a gold and a silver mounted bow from a good maker with similar playing characteristics but the gold generally will have more value than the silver. All im saying.

If it were gold mounted it would be more desirable i know there are all sorts of arguments to be made however “the best” of anything is always in demand

All things considered id rather have a gold mounted bow to resell than a silver mted one

Not a luthier but ive noticed neck angle makes a difference to my perception of sting tension under my fingers tips.

That is gigantic

Looks like a standard german nickel mount trade bow

Have you tried easy solutions first? I had this conversation yesterday with a luthier who had a weird wolf problem. He managed to find a solution with his last by adding a super light chinrest which made the wolf virtually disappear. Ive added mass under the fingerboard in the past…which has helped. I think its more about making it more manageable to play around. A bunch of great instruments have wolfs which has been discussed ALOT on here with different threads. Tons of useful ideas to try. Some aggressive solutions my have unintended negative effects on the overall sound of the instrument.

This New Yorker cartoon seemed to fit this thread

I thought i would just add this Fairfield write up to add some context for the casual reader. I have a stenger fiddle in the herd. It’s actually a really well made fiddle. Ive never seen a bow that was supposedly made by him so have nothing more to add

This picture the ferrule look silver through

And i believe the OP’s ferrule is plated silver as well. You can see the the difference between the silver and copper brass base metal