Violin Shops in Hong Kong

Bumped into another parent who is also learning the violin after the ISF Grade 6/7 Musical and had a brief discussion with him about violin shops in Hong Kong.  Here is my list of violin shops in Hong Kong (most of them also carry other stringed instruments).

Orfeo Strings
I love and hate Orfeo.  Their collection is good (this is the place where you can see and try bows by Thomassin and Vigneron) but I'm really fed up with all the bullshit from one of the guys there.  Visitors to the shop who are identified as someone who can afford better instruments will be told that their children need a Laberte for grade 6 and up violin examinations, and that Chinese and Eastern European violins are for beginners.

Hong Kong Strings
A nice shop in Central with a fairly good collection and helpful staff.  Prices are reasonable too.  However, a neck resetting job that needed to be completely redone keeps me from rating it more highly.

Violmaster
Mr. Au and his apprentices, all quiet and timid men, are extremely helpful.  They carry Chinese stringed instruments of different grades.

Andre Jutras
A small one-man operation in Wanchai.  A French husband to a Chinese lady and father of a teenage girl who is also playing the violin, AJ is one of the very few violin makers here.  These days he is more a dealer of Chinese instruments than a maker/restorer but he does more than just buy and sell.  He will make sure that all the instruments that leave his workshop are properly set up and in playable condition.

Solo Strings
Another no-fuss and honest violin shop in Wanchai.  The shop that I now go to for repair and maintenance.

Some violin shops are less honest than the other.  So be careful.  An unlabeled instrument that is sold for less than US$400 in a Tarisio auction may somehow find its way into a shop in the New Territories and become a HK$50,000 violin with an Italian label.