I would also strongly suggest buying a shoulder rest (I don't mean the chin rest that comes attached to the top of the fiddle, but rather a bar that you clamp to the bottom and take on and off each time).

A shoulder rest makes it much easier to hold the fiddle with your chin, which in turn makes it easier to use your left hand.

Here's one way to tell the difference between an honest student violin and a cheap crappy one: take a look at the perfling (the two black lines that go around the edge of the body. There's supposed to be a separate strip of wood inlaid between the black lines. The really cheap Chinese fiddles have the black lines just painted on and you can see that the grain of the top continues through them.

My question is: how do you identify a decent bow? Are there specific physical characteristics I should keep an eye out for? I can't tell the difference yet between one bow and another.

Marion