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 It was a FedEx package that Yung Chin won’t soon forget. The 53-year-old bow maker and dealer is well known for expert repairs, and express packages arrive daily at his busy Manhattan shop. But this delivery came from a musician interested in Chin’s take on his latest purchase from another shop: a $30,000 bow made by a famous deceased maker. . . .
When Chin opened the package, he quickly realized the musician hadn’t gotten what he had paid for. “It took all of five seconds to recognize this was a new bow,” he says.
Chin broke the bad news to his customer, and a French expert confirmed that the bow was a copy of an old bow passed off as the real thing.
Forgery is a profoundly sensitive subject, and Chin won’t disclose the name of the musician, the location of the shop that sold the fake, or even the name of the deceased maker whose work was forged. But he says such fakery, while uncommon, is a serious and growing problem.
Proceed with Caution
“This issue of fake bows has been part of the trade for a very long time,” Chin says. “But now there’s more of it because these bows are getting very expensive. There’s a lot at stake when someone plunks down 50 grand.”
The scope of the problem is tough to determine. Some leading bow makers and dealers describe counterfeiting as a serious issue. Others argue that the real challenge in buying an antique bow is making sure it’s in good condition and has all its original parts.
Either way, anyone buying a high-end bow should go the extra mile to make sure she gets what she pays for.
But bows have a seductive quality that makes musicians careless, says Bruno Price, co-owner of Rare Violins of New York. “When you find the right bow, it’s wonderful,” says Price, a cellist himself. “All these passages that were so hard to play—it wasn’t you, it was the bow. You know it has blemishes, but you have to have it.”
If the pull of the “perfect” bow can make a normally wary musician overlook condition issues, a little name recognition can add to the sense that she just can’t let this one go. To combat this, a buyer should try to set aside preconceptions and simply focus on the sound, as Los Angeles dealer Robert Cauer advises.
“It’s best if a musician does not know the price or the maker beforehand,” Cauer says.
“They should have the dealer put a list on the table and not look at it as they try the bows. Otherwise, they cheat themselves. If you see a fancy name, you react to it. None of us are immune to that.”
The dangers are real, so it’s important not to make hasty decisions.
“When you’re ready to put money down, you need to step back and say, ‘Have I done my homework?’” Price says.
Tricks in the Trade
Price is less concerned about new fakes than he is about old ones. “It’s very hard to find wood of the quality used 100 years ago,”
he says. “Age is something that’s very difficult to fake, really. When you’ve got a
100-year-old bow that was faked, that’s the problem. Sartory was being copied in his lifetime, after all.”
That’s why authenticating an antique bow can be such a frustrating process, even with expert help. A musician Price knows took an early-19th-century French bow to three different experts and came away three very different opinions on the bow’s value. “And they were all leading experts,” Price says. “What do you do?”
His advice? “Go to someone you really trust, rather than getting 150 opinions and picking the ones you like.”
Creating a counterfeit that will fool
an expert eye is easier than you think, according to Chicago violin maker and dealer Michael Becker.
Becker points to a Central European bow maker who has sold him copies of classic French bows for $1,500. When Becker has put these bows before unsuspecting American bow makers, they have offered 10 times what the copies were worth.
“I’ve never sold them for that, of course,” Becker says. “But it’s scary out there, especially on the high-end stuff.”
Becker points to another common issue: musicians who own an antique bow often have a copy of the frog made so the bow can be played without wearing out the original. When the musician dies, his relatives may know nothing about the fake frog.
“It’ll go past two or three owners and then turn up in an auction as being original in all its parts,” Becker says.
Consult the Experts
The forgery risk is serious, according to Cauer. “There are such good bow makers today they can copy anything, and there’s no varnish to replicate,” he says. “In many cases, there are just a very few bow connoisseurs who can really tell the difference—a very few.”
Seeking an independent opinion is critical, according to Philip Kass, an appraiser who spent 25 years with William Moennig & Sons. But he urges musicians to be aware that experts evaluating items from another dealer may have a conflict of interest.
“I think most will give you an honest opinion, but there are always possibilities,” Kass says. “The person may have a lot of incentive to discourage you from buying that bow, since then you might buy one from him.”
Acquiring basic knowledge about the bow maker whose work you’re interested in can be immensely helpful (see Before You Buy a Bow). “If you do that, you can ask an expert in an informed way why they have
an opinion and understand the explanation you get,” Kass says.
Of course, there is another option. “If you buy a new bow,” Kass says with a laugh,
“you know exactly who made it.”
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