How can I tell?

November 1, 2025, 8:24 AM · Realistically, does it matter if it plays well? Also if it isn't pernambuco, it will make it easier on international travel should you decide to take it on vacation with you

November 1, 2025, 8:59 AM · I'd recommend carbon.

Edited: November 1, 2025, 9:06 AM · Well Jake, I don't travel, so that’s never an issue. Old age has made me a homebody. My band is too busy anyway, we only play in this county.
The differences may be too subtle for my hands and ears. But I’ve been playing with a “pernambuco” bow for a week, and it feels better than my old Brazil wood bow, to me. It’s a little easier to control, being that it weighs less, in the tip, especially.
Andrew, I’m thinking of carbon, maybe for my next bow. The choices are mind blowing.

November 1, 2025, 9:07 AM · Unless you're looking beyond 2-3 K for a bow, you'll get more bang for your buck with carbon fiber. No worries about heat and humidity, virtually indestructible.

November 1, 2025, 9:16 AM · When you are advanced enough you'll want a lighter tip to your bow. That starts at around the Coda GX level. You can also get cheaper hybrid bows which sound nice, but I'm not sure how they balance.

November 1, 2025, 10:33 AM · The answer to the original question is that you may not be able to tell unless you’re a bow maker and used to working with both types. (You do know that pernambuco is the heartwood from the Brazilwood tree, and not a different species, right?).

If it’s cheap, it’s Brazilwood. If it’s expensive, it’s pernambuco. The problem for the lay person (non bow maker) is the gray middle area, where bows might be incorrectly or fraudulently labeled pernambuco.

Keep in mind that if you try 100 pernambuco bows, you’ll get 100 different types of sound, response, weight distribution, and flexibility.

November 1, 2025, 12:31 PM · Scott, don't forget Ipe...

November 1, 2025, 12:46 PM · Nickie, you want to test out different bow strokes you are likely to use and also really understand what kind of sound the bow provides. Unfortunately, we aren't always in a position technically to know all the technique that we are building towards, so if you have a teacher that can test the bow(s) out, they can put it through its paces. But ultimately, it's up to you to feel good about it.

I have always thought carbon fiber bows sound execrable, myself.

November 1, 2025, 1:24 PM · Scott, yes I knew that. That’s like acacia and koa. Koa is the expensive tree in the acacia family, but instrument sellers like to claim “koa” when it’s not.
Christian, what is “execrable”?
I fully intend to take this bow to my next lesson and have my teacher try it out. She plays a pernambuco bow.

Edited: November 1, 2025, 1:34 PM · Also the old koa is exhausted. The young koa is inferior. It is also objected that koa was all they had, and so its superiority over other woods can't be assumed.

November 1, 2025, 1:47 PM · I guess "execrable" is in the ear of the bowholder, but I hear tales that cf bows get better and better all the time; I'm not in the market for a new bow, so I doubt I will have the opportunity to change my mind.

November 1, 2025, 4:57 PM · Yes koa trees are endangered. One guitars and ukulele maker plants two new ones for every tree that’s harvested. Older wood is almost always superior.
For tone, I much prefer mahogany over koa. Koa is sometimes highly figured, and mahogany is plain, it sounds better. Many people hear with their eyes.

Edited: November 2, 2025, 3:47 AM · A good old koa uke has a punchy sound that I've never heard from mahogany. But mahogany varies. I have modern ones, but I also have an S.S.Stewart made from about 2 ounces of Cuban mahogany. Unfortunately some idiot has put a microwedge between the neck and the body giving it a horribly high action.
And a friend has 20 or so vintage Gibsons, but I don't think any of them sounds like punchy koa.

November 1, 2025, 5:29 PM · I'll agree with what Scott Cole has said.

Andrew Fryer, I have a set of Koa salad bowls that I received as a wedding gift somewhere 'round 1973.
Stick a spruce top and a neck on the salad bowl, and you might have a very rare winner of an instrument.

(We also might benefit from freeing up a little space in our kitchen cupboards, and added to that, I can't rule out that my current wife might get a moment or three or ten of joy about disposing of artifacts from my first marriage).

So I'm prepared to make you a really good deal. ;-)

November 1, 2025, 11:09 PM · David, why not make little hand drums out of them?