What did you ever trade to get a mandolin?

[FrDNicholas]

I'll start with this one: I traded my 1970 Martin D-18 guitar which I had played for 15+ years to get a Gibson H-2 mandola at Gruhns. It was a hard choice, but I had really stopped playing the guitar, having picked up mandolin and I really wanted a mandola. It matched my mandolin I had at the time. Anyone else? I should add the salesman at Gruhn's was very helpful. Told me to go out and get a cup of coffee and imagine waking up the next day without the guitar. I thought about it only as long as it took to finish the cofffee and was right back in the store.

[Rick Schmidlin]

I'll start with this one: I traded my 1970 Martin D-18 guitar which I had played for 15+ years to get a Gibson H-2 mandola at Gruhns. It was a hard choice, but I had really stopped playing the guitar, having picked up mandolin and I really wanted a mandola. It matched my mandolin I had at the time. Anyone else? I should add the salesman at Gruhn's was very helpful. Told me to go out and get a cup of coffee and imagine waking up the next day without the guitar. I thought about it only as long as it took to finish the cofffee and was right back in the store.


I traded some of my guitars for my MF5. I have owned it longer then any instrument or Harley.

[Fred Keller]

My future in a lucrative profession :))

[Eddie Sheehy]

Another mandolin...and another...and another... and....

[Rod_Neep]

Well..... I sold two ukuleles that I wasn't playing (kept a bunch though), that bought me half a Weber Bridger A. The other half we don't talk about. :whistling:

Rod

[Timbofood]

My mind! But, I wasn't using it.

[JEStanek]

Mandolins for mandolins...
I've traded a Stradolin Jr for a playable bowlback
An Eastman 814 for a Breedlove KF
A Breedlove KF for an Eastman 2 pointer 805D

Jamie

[mdlorenz]

Just recently traded a 93 Flatiron A for a 04 Weber Gallatin F. The neck is all sticky & is in dire need of a scraping, but I had planned on doing that anyways... :)

[abuteague]

Casual conversation.

I was asked by an acquaintance what I was going to do with my summer and I said "I'd like to play a high pitched instrument near a large body of water."
She said, "Would a mandolin work?"
I said, "Sure."
She got it out of her closet and gave it to me.:disbelief:
Her old music teacher had passed away and left his instruments to various students. She was not a mandolin player and it had been in her closet making her feel guilty that she never played it. Banjo was her thing.
It was a two point Ibanez with no truss rod.
I've lost contact with her and sometimes I try to look her up to say thanks, but no luck so far.
Oh, and that summer I ended up renting a place a couple blocks from the beach. I sounded horrible though.

My dad traded a custom database system for a pig once.

[Hallmark498]

1950 d-18

[SternART]

Sold a Woodley F5, Kimble F5, and a Woodley A4.......to buy a Monteleone Grand Artist Delux.

[Bruce Stein]

Traded a 1996 Flatiron Performer F (plus cash) for a 2007 Gibson F-9. Best trade I ever made!

[Eddie Sheehy]

"My dad traded a custom database system for a pig once. "

Would your dad trade the pig for a Gibson?

You can't eat a Gibson - not without some serious biting power anyway....

[Eddie Sheehy]

Maybe I could just borrow the pig and have him soften up the Gibson a little.....

[mandroid]

60's Hoboken Guild f30 .. trade done 20 years ago

a few years back , got a Westerly made one of those again.

[farmerjones]

i found a heck of a deal on a new pre-beat-up (distressed) Eastman fiddle.
But it messed with my head, so i traded it for one of those Eastman mandolins that look like an F style with an oval hole. Then i got so i liked the F hole sound better, so i traded for an Eastman F style with the F holes, i think it's a 615. Becker Fine Strings in Windsor Heights, Des Moines Iowa. These guys are the real deal.

[Mike Scott]

I traded a Larrivee P-09 in (along with cash) on my KM 1000 when I first started in on the mandolin last spring. No regrets! :grin:

Mike

[Amandalyn]

I went down to the Crossroads......:cool:

[Jim MacDaniel]

I sold a 1966 Gibson B-25 guitar that I hadn't touched in years, in order to buy an Arches flat-top mandolin that I couldn't put down.

[allenhopkins]

Traded a National Triolian plectrum guitar (4-string, long neck, painted black by a previous owner) to Bernunzio as part of the price of the Gibson Army/Navy Custom (gold hardware, extreme curly maple, A-3 headstock inlay, Carlson signed).

Traded a Weymann mandolute (low-end, unfigured maple & spruce, no "fiddle" edges, repaired top cracks) to Stutzman as part of a new Eastman 615 mandola.

And back in the day when Dave Stutzman's dad Eldon wouldn't sell a Gibson mandolin until he got one in trade, I traded an A-1 in on an F-2, then the F-2 in on the F-5 I own now. Luckily, the "no Gibson without a Gibson" policy is no longer in effect at Stutzman's.

[TomTyrrell]

Way too many trades over the years but the one I remember is a set of Ping golf clubs for a Gibson F2.

[mcH]

I traded the other way... one of my mandolins for a Bausch violin bow. We were both happy, and I thinned the herd. {Bows take up less room in the house!}

[mandozilla]

Not exactly a trade but in 1982 the wife and I received an unexpected windfall. I got a nice mandolin and my wife got a 2 week trip to Great Britain. She had a ball and I'm still having a ball...someday I'll make it over to the home of my ancestors. :grin:

[FrDNicholas]

This wasn't really a trade, but I sold my Gibson A4 snakehead to buy a Collings MT. I couldn't be happier with the Collings. It's interesting how, after so many years of loving the oval sound, I just kept hearing the power of the Collings f hole sound. I don't know what I'll do if after some years I get the urge for the oval sound again.

[Frank Johnson]

So far I've only traded little pictures of dead presidents.

[rnr]

Double-neck Remington Pedalsteel that I had traded a Marshall Stack for. I was wanting to learn a new instrument, and I like the sound of a peadl steel. It had strings - how hard could it be?

Suffice to say, I picked up on mandolin MUCH faster.

[Ray(T)]

I traded a large combo amp for my first decent mandolin (an Ibanez Artist) in 1976. Great deal, I had bought the amp from the same shop a couple of years earlier and got more trading it in than I paid for it. I still have the mandolin. No idea what happened to the amp - the shop burned down shortly afterwards!
Ray

[mrmando]

My dad traded a custom database system for a pig once.
I wonder if it was the same pig that Yank Rachell had traded for a mandolin?

[OKMike]

Good one Martin

[scgc.om]

I traded a Baby Taylor guitar for a mediocre Ibanez A--my very 1st mandolin. Not a particularly good trade, but I wasn't playing the Taylor, and mandolins were/are harder to find. Also, that mandolin got me started! Many mandos and LOTSA $$$ later, I'm getting closer to being "MAS-free" . . . . ;~)

[mikie tlizzie]

I traded a 1914 F-2 that i'd bought on our honeymoon at Gruhns for the Gilchrist i still play today. It was a beautiful F-2.

[Gutbucket]

I traded a Bourgais Martin Simpson model guitar, and a National Vintage Delphi resephonic guitar, for a John Ramsey F-5 mandolin. There's been times I wish I kept the National guitar, but I've never regreted having the Ramsey mandolin.

[Patrick Sylvest]

Beard, E body, Maple dobro with Gold resolution Hardware for a Weber Limited Edition F style with Cedar Top. Good trade....my main axe!;)

[Mike Snyder]

I traded an Ibanez red two-pointer, ala Jethro, for an F Kentucky. Neither one had any volume, but I,ve missed that oval ever since. My original intro to scroll envy. Today my FMAS is in remission. But the Collings, Weber, Old Wave ovals .....I see them in my dreams.

[craigw]

In 1964 I traded my Fender Jazzmaster and Fender tube amp straight across for a 1918 F-4 and a cyclops dobro that had been marketed in the 30s or 40s as a Magnatone. Later that year Bill Monroe was playing a gig at the Ash Grove in Hollywood, CA. That's where (as a 19 year old kid) I met him for the first time. When I told him I had just started playing the mandolin and had an old Gibson in the car he asked to see it. After hitting a couple licks on it it he handed it back and said "tune this up to Get up John, I'm gonna play it in the program" then promptly turned and walked away. I had barely started playing and sure didn't know the tuning for Get Up John so I enlisted my friend, Dean Webb to assist and we got it in the ballpark tuning wise. Midway in the set Bill asked for the F-4 and played the tune just like it was on the record. Two of my biggest regrets are 1). refinishing the F-4 when it had gotten dinged playing a bar job and 2). selling the instrument about four years later.

[SGraham]

I refinished an old steamer trunk, got paid with a beat-up old accordion, which I traded for a Dean F-style mandolin, which I traded for a MidMissouri M2. I think I did good on that one...

[Michael Eck]

OMG, 2008 was a year of trading/upgrading many instruments and the list of all the I've traded over the years is crazy.

For now, I'll stick to the trail of one mandolin:

Traded a Kentucky A (don't remember the model) for a Kentucky F (don't remember the model).

Traded the F for an early Chinese Kentucky KM675.

Traded that for an 80s Washburn M4.

Traded that for a really nice 80s MIJ Kentucky KM 700, which I also had refretted and fixed up just right.

This week I traded that -- even again -- for a new Martin S-O Ukulele.

It was a hard call to make, but so far I'm not regretting it.

[Ken Feil]

I traded my first wife (who really disliked mandolins) for a little peace and freedom. Then met my current wife (of 32 years) who loves bluegrass, mandolins and plays a mean Martin D-28. How lucky can a get?

Ken

[Tim Bowen]

When I first started gigging mandolin a few years back, I was working quite a bit with this alt. country band that would do greasy bars one night and concert venues for umpteen folks the next. At the time I was playing a lowly Fender mandolin... the mandolin itself played and intonated great (which is why I still have it), but the little single coil pickup just sort of sucked eggs, regardless of how I routed it. So I traded one of my spare MIA Fender Stratocasters for an Ovation mando. The Ovation has high action by default and in no way sounds like a "traditional" mandolin, but man is it ever a great choice for high energy full band scenarios, particularly when you'll be working with different systems and techs on a regular basis. I wanted a bit more of a traditional thing for my duo, with which I'm working exclusively these days; I've settled in with a Michael Kelly Legacy, which has served me well. However, it won't surprise me in the least to again call on the Ovation when full band work comes calling.

[jim_n_virginia]

To get my very first mandolin I traded a 1963 Volkswagen van with a mattress in the back(oh if that bus could talk! LOL!) and a blown engine that I owned many years ago when I lived in New Orleans to a friend for a 1960 flatback Harmony mandolin that was spray can painted white and a couple of lessons.

Two fingered chords sounded pretty good on that thing as I recollect!

After that the only thing I ever traded for any mandolin was another mandolin (Mid Mo, 2 Flatirons and 2 Gibson) or cash.

[Bob DeVellis]

I sold a 1910 Jeffries anglo concertina to finance the purchase of my Sobell small-bodied mandolin (see avatar). I actually realized enough to buy the Sobell with a couple of grand to spare. I've never regretted the transaction and, from what I've heard, the purchaser of the concertina could now get his money back with a nice chunk of change on top. So, everyone was happy on that deal. That Sobell remains my go-to mandolin and gets considerably more playing time than all my others combined.

[Larry S Sherman]

I've done a fair bit of trading over the years.

To get various mandolins I've traded a Fender Strat and Tele, an Ibanez electric guitar, an Alvarez Yari acoustic, several cool amps and effects, and a sweet vintage Orpheum #3 Special tenor banjo.

I've also traded a Draleon Royale mandolin towards a gypsy jazz guitar.

I'm always interested in trading. (http://www.mandolincafe.com/cgi-bin/classifieds/classifieds.cgi?search_and_display_db_button=on&db_id=32551&query=retrieval)

Larry