Fiddlerman has made videos about what to look out for, but...

I'm wondering if the criteria depend on how much you want to spend?

And if so, how many price-bands are there?

I don't know how much I want to spend. Last night a musician told me I should spend my life's savings, as it's a good invesment: but I can't do that - my flat/apartment takes precedence over my fiddling.

Also, I'll mostly be taking my fiddle to a roughish part of town, so there's a trade-off betwen value and insurance and so on.

I was looking at bow reviews, and the ones for Coda looked the most convincing, so I naively thought I could afford their best when I thought their best was $500. Then I realised their best was $1000 (nominal UK prices). I toyed with that idea before realising I don't want to take a $1000 bow to a rough part of town every week, let alone the fiddle itself (but my friend took her $40,000 viola there once, so I'll ask her about this subject too)!

So maybe my budget is $1500 for the fiddle and $500 for the bow. I don't know.

Do the same selection criteria apply as for a $500 fiddle?

Yeah, I know, play them in the store.

Also (I hope this post isn't too long, but a second post might confuse), my experience with a dirt-cheap plastic oboe makes me theorise that all student instruments are capable of more than their owners get out of them before they upgrade. So I have the belief that somewhere there's a student violin, the potential of which I won't exhaust before I'm decrepit. I wonder what you'd pay for that kind of instrument.