Chinese violins
 

I see these on fleabay all the time for usually cheap money. The other day a local person posted in a FB group that he had 10 of these violins for sale 'cheap' ($75) as he wanted to get rid of them before moving. Said they normally 'retail' for $199, he sells them for $125 set up and tuned. Case and bow included.
I asked, and he would not provide a video/audio sample of what they sounded like, making excuses.
Any fiddle players here who know anything about cheap violins that are worth the (under $100) money? I'll probably never get good enough to play one at a gig, but it would be nice to have the 'sound' available occasionally for recording. I've also seen a fretted violin - specifically made for guitarist/mandolin players.

If you go into any serious violin shop, you will find that they have instruments they figure would be ok to start on. They sell for around $500.

If you go into a very good guitar store, it is close to the same thing. The basic mandolin that any serious player would recommend is around $350.

There are a lot of instrument looking objects out there sold by big box online stores who know there is a market for cheap.

There’s a violin guy who has violins for $300 or $400 out of Lawrence, Mass (check craigslist) and one near Ipswich (Boxford I think- Rowanstrings.com). If you are close to that area, I’d look there. Forget the fretted violins. You want to be able to do those cool slides and a variety of other techniques. $100 isn’t much for a violin. A good set of strings are over $50 alone.

I bought a cheap violin for $100. It cost me more than that to make it playable. Then the case fell apart. Never again.

Btw, I know that guy selling violins on the FB group. Stay away. Stay very far away. He imported and sold Ovation, Taylor and PRS copies until the lawsuits started rolling in. He disappeared for a while and I see he’s back with these violins.

I'm pretty sure I know how this story ends.

Would stay away. I have a very old German violin that I Roy to keep safe and several years ago I purchased a Chinese violin that looked great. It actually had a twisted neck and was unplayable. You get what you pay for.

I'm an instrumental music teacher and a few years ago I went on a mission to find the cheapest solid-wood violin that I could recommend to my students who insisted on the $49 fleabay specials. Through International Violin (out of Baltimore, MD), I came up with the Palatino VN-450 for around $90. I had to file the nut slots a hair but it was playable. The weak link in all of these cheap violins is the bow. They're horrible. So that's an automatic replacement that you're already paying for. If you don't mind an ugly violin, contact a local rental shop. They periodically sell off their rental fleet when they're too beat up to go out again. Also, by far the best student string out right now is the Alphayue at less than $20.

I've tried the same over the years, but none were really playable as they shipped. Most have some terrible thick lacquer and ship with strings that are only suitable as fencing wire. I know enough about violin setup to shape the nut & bridge, fit the pegs, and cut and set a new soundpost. Even after what would be $150 worth of work and $50 worth of strings, it is really a crap shoot. The only decent Chinese models I got from a place on ebay called Yita Music.

In the case of what you are describing, you can go onto Aliexpress and find similar "boxed sets" of 10 instruments. I'd steer clear unless you are a glutton for punishment.

I normally find those types of deals to be too good to be true. But here is a guy who reviews one with pretty positive results:

https://youtu.be/SFaCpYRMKB8

Kind of what I figured. Think I'll save my wife the horrific screeching sounds coming from my music room...

Heck you can get those great screeching sounds out of a Strad:D

In China they just call them violins.

If you actually care about what a violin sounds and plays like, anything less than an intermediate student model (way more than $500) is a joke. I think it’s easier to get a serviceable cheap guitar than a cheap violin.

There are very good Chinese shop violins, but you do somewhat get what you pay for. I purchased a very nice Chinese production shop violin from International Violin many years ago, sale priced at $450. I kept it for something like 15 years and it appraised (and sold) through Elderly as a consignment for more than I paid for it. If you're not knowledgeable about violins talk to someone who is and listen to them.

A $100 violin will usually sell for half of that as soon as the case is opened. If you actually want to play what you buy then up your ante a bit.

Way out of my budget (and skill set!) to buy a good one. Curious on why violins don't have some 'decent' lower-budget models available, akin to Yamaha's $200 range for guitars.
And on bows - I understand the good one can be more expensive, but I've seen some 'new style' ones that don't use horse hair so last much longer.

Good question. I'm unsure of the answer.

The bow is almost on equal footing with the instrument, so don't be surprised if you see recommendations for bows costing way more than you are speculating to pay for a "starter" instrument.

In my case I purchased a lower-end Coda bow which was on the order of $150 if I remember correctly. Bows are designed to be re-haired, but that will normally cost you $50-$75 to have a re-hair done. Depending on your technique you won't need that done often.

Violin can be a "challanging" instrument, and one of the quickest ways you can insure failure is working with synthetic hair. It's just not easy to pull tone from the synthetic hair, so don't shoot yourself in the foot by going for "longer lasting" bow hair.