Mandolin & Mandolin Family

The reason this mandolin is called Custom Vintage is because it has some upgraded features.  Immediately one sees (like a shining beacon) its  “The Weber” headstock inlay with the large and flowery (well, it is a flower pot, after all) urn with the fern and below that the matte finish, shapely truss rod cover held in place by two nickel-plated Phillips head screws.  The tuners are engraved plate with pearloid buttons and a recessed nickel Phillips head screw at the end of each button.

Per the Weber web site, every feature most desired by players is available in this exquisite, glossy-finished workhorse [actual horses are not typically glossy finish]. Sporting the rich, full sound of tone bar bracing, the Traditional Brekke Bridge, and the playability of a comfortably radiused ebony fretboard, the Yellowstone is fantastic in any forum. From your family's living room to a hard-scrabble roadhouse, the Yellowstone will always hold its own as a graceful bluegrass powerhouse.

being of standard description in the Florentine body shape (large body scroll and two body points, with smaller scrolls and a point on the headstock) except for one cosmetic feature and that's that it has the "Grey Fox" logo (the "o" in "fox" is two foxes) inlaid in mother of pearl near the center of the headstock.

Finding a John D’Angelico mandolin at a reasonable price is like winning the lottery.  He made, according his logbook, just 47 mandolins out of the approximately 1,163 pieces he is thought to have built in total, or at least there are just 47 entered into his log book.     How many of these were made in roundbelly is not known.  In our forty years in business we have found (and sold) only one other Neapolitan D’Angelico mandolin.  

This exceptional and effortlessly easy-to-play mandolin, made by Rolfe Gerhardt South Thomaston, ME, is similar in appearance to his Phoenix NeoClassical in that it has neither top nor back binding and utilizes (to extremely good effect) Thomastic Enfield flatwound strings which are made in Vienna, Austria.  It has the two-part adjustable bridge in which the bridge base is made from “Timeless Timbre” or “Old Wood” or maybe “Sinker Maple” – wood that was submerged in an extremely deep river under tremendous pressure for over a hundred years, or so says the legend.

Weber makes every carved family model in every voicing – mandolin, mandola, octave mandolin and mandocello.  We commend them for their versatility and, as well, for the extremely high quality of their design and workmanship.   This has a standard 17” scale length, a polished ebony headplate that bears the stylized “Weber” Victorian era typeface logo and a complicated Celtic knot thereunder – both in ivoroid.

There are few fretted instruments more stately, elegant and majestic than the pre-1922 Gibson F-4.   It was the top of the line mandolin in its time and has just about every fancy appointment that the Gibson Company could utilize to complete its sumptuous countenance.     The most notable of these features is the large body scroll on the upper bass bout and the two large body points on the treble side.  (“It’s definitely a male,” says the biologist, “trying to attract a mate.”)  The color of this example is a deeper more rubicund, being that the tawny red shading approaches Cremona Brown Sunburst, especially on the sides and back.

Solid carved spruce top with traditional high-gloss nitro-cellulose sunburst finish, Solid carved highly flamed maple back and sides, Bound, rosewood fingerboard with Saga's new distinctive fingerboard extension design

Our Discount Price is $8,245.00 and Our Cash Discount Price is $7,995.00.

With a design that reflects the golden era of mandolin building, the American Series FF mandolin combines the best traditional construction elements with Breedlove's cutting edge aesthetics and attention to detail.   The FF has a strong, punchy tone with plenty of bass.   The deep throaty voice resonates from the F-holes on the Sitka Spruce top.

The Trinity College Celtic Mandolin is a brand new design for those who prefer the flat top and back mandolin. This type of mandolin has traditionally been used for Celtic, Blues, Old-Timey, Brazilian music, and various other styles. The goal of the designers at Trinity College was to create the highest quality instrument of its type--an instrument suitable for any professional artist--but priced considerably lower than the prices that the current "boutique" makers ask for their instruments of similar quality.

This mandolin is quite handsome having the black finish face, medium brown sides and back, a black ebony veneer headstock overlay with no logo on it as is common to the Style A-; the back of the neck is mahogany, the back and sides are plain maple and the top is carved spruce.  This has the oval soundhole, bound in yellowed ivoroid, and encircled on the face by three rings of crème-black-crème.  The bridge is one piece of ebony, compensated at the top, the slide-on tailpiece cover is etched “The Gibson” with a floral pattern.   

This example is especially nifty because not only is it exceptional sounding but also because we ordered it “semi-custom” with a magnificent sunburst (shaded) top, back, sides and back of the neck and a pickup!  

The List Price is $2,729.

This mandolin has a teardrop shaped body, twin open f-holes, a sunburst finish top and uniform mahogany brown back and sides. According to history books the Venetian is the only Gibson-made Epiphone mandolin model, meaning a mandolin made in the USA at the Gibson Kalamazoo factory. After 1970 Epiphone brand instruments were made in Japan and since then they have moved on to other Far Eastern countries, but back then they were as American as apple pie and well advertised bladder control products.

There are few prewar mandolins as beautiful or as elegant as the Gibson teens F-2. We tip our hat to Orville H. Gibson (mystery: nobody knows what the middle initial stood for, perhaps we should make a contest out of it) for inventing one of the most compelling musical instrument designs of the past 117 years.

The Gibson F-7 was a fairly short-lived but extremely well regarded model, made for just six years between 1934 and 1939. What it is, essentially, is a Gibson prewar F-5 mandolin with simpler appointments, and having a neck that joins the body at the 10th fret. In terms of the simpler appointments, this model has single-ply crème celluloid side, neck, headstock and pickguard binding, unbound twin lower case f-shaped soundholes.

Bring your talent and enjoyment of music to any setting, and let the Bitterroot do the heavy lifting. The playability of our radiused fingerboard and the Bluegrass muscle of our tone bar braced, aged spruce top combine with a traditional look to create the best and most affordable workhorse mandolin on the planet.

The Weber List Price is $2123

Even in their least example mandolin model Collings continues the standard of perfection of design and execution for which they are famous. The top is so close-grained as to create eddies and pools of medullary rays (cross-silking), the maple on the sides, back and neck is curly and striped.  This one has the standard 1 1/8" fingerboard width at the nut.