I should have no say in this topic because I am a beginner. My daughter and I each has two bows that came with my violin. Before I bought her the violin, she had a rental one; when she broke one of the pegs of the rental violin, we took it back for repair, and asked for a replacement. The replacement violin came with a better bow; I don't know how good it is but when I used it I noticed a big difference. The violin sounds a lot better with that bow than mine or my daughter's. If your child has already been playing for three years, I would say go ahead and get him/her a better bow so he/she would enjoy playing violin even more.

i know Fiddlerman still has some for sale, if your child is using 4/4 violin which i assumed he/she is since he/she is already in middle school. Shar has some on sale, but I don't know the quality for sure!

Up to $200 and a collection of 6 to 8  different bows over 5 years, I have found no correlation between price and performance of bows.  I find that I am now using carbon fiber bows rather than the wooden bows because of the heavier action of the carbon fiber bows that I have.  

I have also never seen a rigorous technical argument about WHY(?) a more expensive bow should be better on any and all violins ????????

PS  I'm excluding synthetic hair bows from my remarks.  I have had such bows  but had a hard time with rosin and the feel of the bow on the strings.

I had a 23.00 bow and thought all bows were about the same.  Was I wrong.  I purchased a composite carbon fiber bow for $80.00 and what a difference.  I have only been playing for around 8 months but the new bow made things so much better and I enjoyed playing more with this bow.  The bow no longer bounced off the strings, much less pressure if any was needed to play at the tip.  Go for it and buy the one that fiddlerman has on ebay.  It is the same as the one I purchased.  You will not regret it.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/200670.....1423.l2648

Gail said:

I'm new here so I hope I'm posting in the right place.  I just ordered my first violin after doing a lot of online browsing.  The vendors who sell horsehair bows brag about the superior quality of horsehair.  The vendors who sell carbon fiber bows brag about the superiority of their product.  What is the difference between natural fiber and synthetic fiber?  The violin I ordered comes with "unbleached Mongolian white horsehair."  Thanks in advance for an answer. 

I think you may be getting confused.  Most bows have natural hair. The hair on most comes from mongolia but few actually come from the mongolian horse. I'm getting carried away.  On carbon fiber bows the stick itself is made from carbon fiber but the hair is usually unbleach mongolian horse hair. With a carbon fiber bow the shap is much more stable.  Unless you are a very acomplished player I don't think you will be able to tell the difference bewteen a carbon fiber bow and a $2,000.00 bow.  Some masters even now prefer carbon fiber.  If the violin you ordered is a relatively inexpensive violin the bow is more than likely not a good bow even if it has mongolian horsehair.  There are bows with synthetic fibers instead of horsehair but I do not know much about them.  Soon after getting my first bow for $23.00 I purchased a carbon fiber bow and it changed the world for me.