Bow rehair mishap? (not the rehair part)

September 7, 2025, 10:48 PM · This is a he said she said thing. In the end I'm going to additionally pay half the price of the rehair for a thing that was not my fault because it's the least worst option, but what else could I do / have done here?

I brought my primary bow (and a backup bow) in for rehair with a luthier my teacher recommended. I pointed out that the grip was slightly loose*, luthier saw that the winding was starting to unravel at the non grip end, and wrote rehair and winding on the intake form. In hindsight, I think the attention to the winding made us forget about the grip. *Slightly loose meaning you could slide it a bit towards the tip, if you forced it, but it wouldn't slip on its own, so it didn't bother me much.

It was my mistake to have picked the bows up without looking at them closely. A few hours later, I set up to practice and noticed the lack of grip. Called luthier back to inquire...he said the bow had no grip. I was thinking that can't be right but didn't know what to say and probably just wrapped up the call politely. Called teacher for advice...he said to explain that I need the grip, to say I'm "pretty sure" there was one, and thought it might cost $15-20 if any. I went back and luthier was adamant that there was no grip and that he noted this was unusual. Called teacher from the workshop because the estimate was 3x what he thought and what should I do?? He was dismayed but at this point, it's either leave the bow for the replacement grip or just leave and have to arrange to go somewhere else.

What could have happened? Having practiced with this bow near daily for 6-7 months, there is no way something happened to the grip without me noticing. Even if I had realized at pickup, instead of after leaving, I don't suppose it would have gone over well if I had whipped out my photographic evidence that there was in fact a grip on it a few weeks ago (I was recording student lessons) because, you know, "what if" something happened since then. The whole episode has left a bad taste and now I feel like I need to photograph my stuff before leaving it with anyone, which I never thought to do with previous luthiers.