Brazilian Bows

[Bob Branstetter]

I saw another thread where the name John Brasil was mentioned. For some reason, that made me think about bows that are actually made in Brazil. I noticed recently that Steven Reiley is now selling a line of student grade Pernambuco bows that are made in Brazil. For those who don't know Steve, he is an excellent bow maker himself. I've had a few Brazilian made bows pass through my shop in the past and as best I remember, they were comparable to German made student grade bows at the time. Anyone have any current information on bows that are made in Brazil? I guess it only makes sense for them to be making more bows now since Pernambuco grows there and (with Pernambuco being on the endanged species list) getting Pernambuco exported is getting harder all the time. Maybe China is going to have some competition.

[Arnold Schnitzer]

Brazilian bows have been around for a long time. I sell them regularly. The craftsmanship is very good and several individual makers have made a good name for themselves; M.Cirillo, for example. They generally buy their frogs and screws from Europe, and make the rest by hand. I sell nice Brazilian bows in my shop from $500 to $1200 and they will often stand up to bows worth two and three times as much. The wood quality is excellent.

[Ken McKay]

I sell the Arcos Brazil line of bows and they are excellent quality. The wood is much better than the Chinese bows that I get which makes sense. I don't sell many bass bows, mostly violin. http://www.arcosbrasil.com/index.html

Most of the makers are German but now live in Brazil.

[Michael Holden]

Brazilian bowmakers are really making a name for themselves. 90% of them have their own plantations, so they arne't cutting down new trees, and the wood used in the bows made today is already 10 or so years old (in the case of Horst John (John Brasil) his wood is 12 years old.
I find their bows to be amazing quality, and have argued this fact in another thread on this forum. I have compared $800-$1,200 Brazillian bows to 2k-3k (non-brazilian) bows. THey really are amazing. Of course that is just my opinion.
I have also compared the wood to many chinese bows, except for Ken's "super" chinese bows that we hear so much about, they have so far, surpassed every chinese bow I have played. To be fair though, the chinese bows I have tried have been in the $300 - $900 price range.
I find the brazilian bowmakers a very good source of bows, and environmentally friendly (most own their own plantations and have massive amounts of wood stored up, so they don't cut down new trees.)

[Michael Holden]

http://www.giannaviolins.com/bow/Brazil/history.html

[Bob Branstetter]

Thanks for the info on the Brazilian bows. I stopped selling new bows years ago after I closed my violin shop. With all of the heavy discounting on mail order and Internet sales, I found I could make more more money by putting the money into stocks and mutual funds than I could by stocking and selling bows. Sad but true.