This bow was purchased new in the early 1980's by its current owner. Played in various orchestras including the TSO, showing normal wear from decades of use, it remains in excellent condition.
Made by Lawrence LaMay, it is numbered 542. An ad placed in 2011 for LaMay bow #572 was said to date from the late 1970's, so it seems likely this bow was made around 1978. LaMay made instruments and bows from at least the early 1960's, and several of his German style doublebass bows have sold for between $2,000USD and $2,500USD over the past decade. Asking $2,500CAD for this bow, which weighs 131 grams, - not his lightest bow, as at least one is mentioned as weighing 125 grams, with others as much as 142 grams. It has a strong camber and uses a dark, very resistant pernambuco with several whorls in the grain along the stick. Playable hair measures 54cm, stick from adjuster interface to tip is 67.5cm. The silver ferrule was worked rather too thinly on the inner half of the flat face and has at some point suffered a bend to the metal (probably by a careless rehairer) which resists smoothing out, and as a result the shell veneer has suffered some wear from the player's hand. A nimble bow.
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