Berthold Schuster Trade Violin Bow- Germany circa 1935-1940

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This bow was made in a German workshop with very decent craftsmanship and great strength. It has, as I like to say about a decent bow, nice bones. It’s always about the wood for the bow, in this case pernambuco. This is bow from my collection of sticks acquired with the help of my dad back in the mid-to-late 1970’s. I was a young high school kid living just outside of New York City in New Jersey and totally into three things: violin, umpiring, and playing baseball. That changed a bit as I got older. For many years my dad went with me to estate sales, private sales, and instrument auctions footing the bill and coaching me as I went. The bow has been at my home workshop in my collection of sticks gathering dust for over 45 years. I finally complete this bow on Saturday April 25, 2026.

The stick has deeper orange/brown color and good clarity to the wood grain. The bow has received what we call the spa treatment. A new tip in casein material, good cleaning, at least two times, and new leathers. The bow has pin work, no screws in the frog, and feels light in the hand. The stick is cut in octagonal section and is firm in its makeup. The camber flows from behind the head gradually. What is neat to see is that the stick does not have a lot of girth. It is incremented well. The head is chamfered, all with knife work; old school and almost bell chamfered (slightly flared) at the very bottom or back of the head. The frog is Parisian eye model; mother-of-pearl eyes surrounded by silver rings. The slide has nice color, soft colors captured by a sliver holder of the pearl. The stick rocks because the wood is firm, and I like its fight. It has the package: strength, balance, and has a nice gram weight that many players today look for in a well-made bow. The bow weighs just above 60.0 grams and is mounted in nickel silver fittings. At my bow bench I need all kinds of different tools, sharp tools to complete a restoration on a bow correctly and to try to get it completed in a timely fashion. Players also need different tools in their violin case to get the job done, in order to play different genres of music, and to create different sounds on their instrument. The stick is strong, fun to play with, and is just waiting for a player to match it to their violin.

Weight fully haired 60.1 grams