Help with bow identification

[P J Lester]

Any opinions on this bow appreciated

[Blank face]

Looks like a Markneukirchen area bow roughly 100 years old, pernambuco and nickel mounted.

[Brad Dorsey]

It looks to me like it could be silver mounted, but with a nickel frog ring.  I don't think I have seen one like this, but I occasionally see the reverse -- nickel mounted with silver frog rings.

[P J Lester]

Thanks for the replies. It is in fact silver mounted. It is marked but illegible.

[Blank face]

I looked at the eye ring with green tarnish, so the other mounts could be cleaned silver. In question I would prefer to leave black tarnish at the silver to make proof what it is. Of course one can find combinations of nickel and real silver at this bows.

Maybe it could be possible to identify the stamp with more in-focus photos?

[Brad Dorsey]

51 minutes ago, Blank face said:

…I would prefer to leave black tarnish at the silver to…proo[ve} what it is…

Would you offer a bow for sale to players with black tarnish?

[Blank face]

49 minutes ago, Brad Dorsey said:

Would you offer a bow for sale to players with black tarnish?

Yes. Why not?

[Brad Dorsey]

I have always thought that removing the tarnish and making the silver shiny would make a bow more attractive and more sale-able. 

In my experience, other dealers are able to distinguish between untarnished silver and untarnished nickel, and players want bows that play well and look attractive.  So, I see no reason not to remove the tarnish from silver bow fittings.

I don't mean to say that you're wrong; I'm just explaining what I think.

[Blank face]

8 hours ago, Brad Dorsey said:

I have always thought that removing the tarnish and making the silver shiny would make a bow more attractive and more sale-able. 

In my experience, other dealers are able to distinguish between untarnished silver and untarnished nickel, and players want bows that play well and look attractive.  So, I see no reason not to remove the tarnish from silver bow fittings.

I don't mean to say that you're wrong; I'm just explaining what I think.

At first I wrote "in question", meaning if it's not completely clear what kind of metal we are looking at - here we seem to have both nickel and silver.

As second note, the idea of "all as shiny as possible" is to my knowledge disputed since long, actually the restoration efforts are aiming more towards leaving as much original surface structure as possible, at varnish or metal surfaces. High glossy polishing or overcoating with French polish and the like seems to be somehow very old fashioned and destructive.

At least by leaving tarnish I didn't think of letting it be as dark and crusty as possible but just leaving some spots while cleaning other parts carefully and more "conservative".

 

[Strad O Various Jr.]

Its easier to sell if you can prove its silver, tarnish does that, once you polish it away most people can't tell the difference between silver and nickel, especially from photos

[Jwillis]

Most people can’t tell one violin from another if we are going down that road…but I agree it’s a simple solution for selling a silver bow online 

[P J Lester]

Can it be determined if the frog is original to the stick?

[Spelman]

As a player, I much prefer shiny silver to tarnished silver. It's one of the reasons gold is so awesome.

[P J Lester]

Any thoughts? French? German? Hawaiian?

[palousian]

4 hours ago, P J Lester said:

Any thoughts? French? German? Hawaiian?

On 11/28/2022 at 12:43 AM, Blank face said:

Looks like a Markneukirchen area bow roughly 100 years old, pernambuco and nickel mounted.