Most bows look the same to the layman especially when most bows don't come labelled with the make. So how to tell the $15 bows from the $100 ones? All comments are welcome. Thanks!

By the sound and the technique. High quality bows work better with advanced techniques.

You cannot know until you:

a) have the skills to play advanced
b) try the bow!

Actually nicer bows sound better in legato and "easy" stuff, too.

The bow is what makes the sound happen. You can hear the difference.

Oh, and I thought I read "one *thousand*" dollars--but now I see that you wrote $100. No matter--you should still try out various. But that is a narrow bottom-feeder price range, and so you won't find anything spectaclar, though you will certainly find some utter garbage. In that lower price range, the standard against which you should measure performance is the Glasser Bronx. If you cannot get a wooden one to sound better than a glasser, tehn get a glasser. In fractional sizes, many wood bows are really awful, and the Glasser is the best--we did an exhaustive check of bows up to about $250 for 1/2 size a few months ago, for my son, and in the end, the glasser was far and above nicer.

Personally, I don't think it matters what type of bow you use, as long as you use light rosin and not a lot of it, it will work just fine for staccato or legato.