Musical Instrument Repair in Pasadena: $22 Bow Rehairs

Callier-Scollard Violins, at 50 East Green Street, Suite 142, is a violin repair shop in Old Town Pasadena where a violin bow rehair still costs $22 if you can leave the bow for a week. Craig Scollard keeps short, split hours: Monday to Wednesday from 10 am to 1 pm, and Thursday to Saturday from 2 pm to 5 pm, closed Sunday. No appointment is needed during those hours. For musical instrument repair on violins, violas, cellos and basses, it is one of the cheapest benches in Los Angeles County.

The shop traces its roots to 1928, when Frank J. Callier, who had worked in San Antonio, opened a violin shop on Sunset Boulevard near Bronson Avenue in Hollywood. According to the shop's history page he made about 300 violins and about 3,000 bows, and on Sundays came in to carve Beethoven busts. His son Paul opened his own shop in Pasadena and later moved it into the Green Hotel building. Scollard apprenticed with Paul, ran the Hollywood shop from the mid-1980s on Wilcox Avenue, and took over Pasadena around 2010 when Paul retired.

Bow rehairs are the backbone of the business, and the price list is unusually steady. A violin or viola bow is $22 with one-week service, a cello bow is $25, and German or French bass bows are $40. Salt-and-pepper hair, mixed by hand from pure white and black, is $3 more. Scollard writes that he got into the habit years ago of holding rehair prices steady rather than nudging them up, and that he does every rehair himself. He also puts his return rate at roughly one rehair in a thousand.

The one-week price assumes you can wait. Express service costs extra, scaled to how soon you need the bow back, and same-day rehairing is offered by appointment only. A February 2026 note on the site records a same-day cello bow rehair. If you have a concert this weekend, phone first and leave a message; Scollard says he checks the machine daily and returns calls. Picking up a finished violin or bow also calls for a quick ring ahead, so you know it is ready before you climb the stairs.

Bridge fitting has its own published scale. On a violin or viola, a standard fitting is $40 plus the cost of an Aubert bridge, a deluxe fitting is $100, and a student fitting is $35. Cello bridges run $70 standard, $135 deluxe and $65 student, and bass bridges are $195 or $275. The bridge blank itself is sold at 40 percent off list. The page shows a violin bridge Scollard fitted in April 1987 that he says is still in daily use, which is the best advertisement for paying for the standard cut.

The repairs section of the website is a sprawling photo archive: cello rib cracks, sound post cracks, sheared cello necks, broken scrolls, varnish matching on a fire-damaged cello, and repairs to bows that look past saving. It also includes oddities such as a folding bass, a Mongolian morin khuur and a hurdy-gurdy fingerboard. Prices for this kind of structural work are not posted, so expect a quote after he sees the damage. One customer review describes him rehairing more than 50 bows and repairing eight cracked cellos over one summer.

The front room doubles as a rental counter. Small violins rent for $12 a month and full-size violins for $14, with tax included. Violas are $18 and cellos $35 a month. Each rental is adjusted before it goes out, with the bridge, pegs, nut and sound post set, and the shop stocks all sizes. Parents are asked to call ahead with the size their child needs so an instrument can be set up in time. That makes this a practical stop for families in the San Gabriel Valley.

The shop is upstairs in the old Green Hotel building at the corner of Fair Oaks Avenue and Green Street. The entrance is in the middle of the block on Green Street, the door with steps in front of it. At the intercom, press 142 and then the call button, and Scollard will buzz you in. Do not judge the shop by the stairwell. Customers describe the interior as a dusty old European-style violin shop, with instruments hanging everywhere and old violin art on the walls.

The regulars range widely. Parents bring in rental-size violins for new bridges, mariachi musicians get a photo page of their own on the shop's site, and the review pages are full of cellists and bassists. One long-time customer wrote that her grandfather, a cellist, took his bows to Frank Callier on Sunset in 1932. Several reviews make the same point: Scollard gives a $100 school fiddle the same care as an expensive one. If your instrument needs a new top or a full revarnish, set aside time to talk it through, because he will.

After dropping off a bow, walk a block east to Castle Green on Raymond Avenue, the surviving Moorish-style section of the 1890s hotel complex, whose towers rise above the street. North along Raymond is Memorial Park, with its bandshell and the Metro A Line station beside it. Head back west and Colorado Boulevard runs through the heart of Old Town, with its brick storefronts and alleys. Pasadena City Hall, with its domed tower, is a short walk east along Holly Street and worth the detour at sunset.

Address: 50 East Green Street, Suite 142, Pasadena, CA 91105, at Fair Oaks Avenue. Enter mid-block on Green Street and press 142 on the intercom.
Hours: Monday to Wednesday 10 am to 1 pm, Thursday to Saturday 2 pm to 5 pm, closed Sunday. No appointment needed in these hours.
Leave a message if no one answers.
Bow rehairs: violin and viola $22, cello $25, bass $40, all one-week service. Express and same-day by appointment cost extra.
Bridge fitting: violin standard $40, cello standard $70, plus the bridge.
Rentals: violin $12 or $14 a month, viola $18, cello $35, tax included.