how many builders are there

[James Sanford]

I live in rural Alabama and know of at least 4 mandolin builders within a 40 mile radius of my small town.

This site lists hundreds of professional builders.

Is this explosion of mandolin building unique or does it extend into other types of stringed instruments? I wonder also what is driving the large growth in mandolin building. I have played bluegrass for 40 plus years and this seems to be the height of the availability of quality mandolins.

[Mike Black]

Jim,

I know what you mean. I know of at lest two other people besides myself building Mandolins in my small town. As well as 4 people building violins and 2 others building guitars. That's not counting all of the luthier repair people. At lest 6 of those.

[Tim2723]

I don't think there's any doubt that the mandolin is seeing a resurgance of popularity. So is the ukulele for that matter. Why that is I'm not sure. I can say that the Irish/'Celtic' world has seen a tremendous increase in mandolin popularity as well. Only thirty years ago you have been very unlikely to see the instrument in an Irish session. Today you can easily find a number of players within a group.

[Bill Snyder]

I don't know that all of the builders in the database build for a living. I think some of them try to sell a few to offset the cost of their hobby.
I would imagine that for every mandolin builder there is probably 10 people building guitar.

[barney 59]

I went to the Healdburg Festival with luthiers from all over the world- 100's of them--or at least 100. There were only a few mandolins there--so it would seem that there are many more guitar builders than mandolin builders -as there are many more guitar players than mandolin players. I think there is one mandolin luthier for every mandolinist that earns enough money playing mandolin to justify paying the premium price required for a custom mandolin. Fortunately, for the builders, there is the rest of us that don't make the money but buy them anyway.

[sunburst]

Despite my low number of mandolins built, I started building them over 20 years ago. Back then, there were few of us, now mandolin builders are everywhere!

The Healdsburg festival is a guitar festival so it stands to reason that mostly guitars would be there, but even so, guitar makers (and guitar players) greatly outnumber mandolin makers (and mandolin players).

[barney 59]

Despite my low number of mandolins built, I started building them over 20 years ago. Back then, there were few of us, now mandolin builders are everywhere!

The Healdsburg festival is a guitar festival so it stands to reason that mostly guitars would be there, but even so, guitar makers (and guitar players) greatly outnumber mandolin makers (and mandolin players).

I find it kind of interesting that it is called a "guitar festival " rather than a luthiers or fretted instrument festival. It is sponsored after all by Luthiers Merchantile International that supplies to mandolin builders as well. There were a couple of somewhat odd mandolins there and Michael Lewis and Austin Clark had mandolins. Both make wonderful mandolins and I played them all. Austin Clark mandolins are, I believe, a bargain, by the way. You could consider Michael Lewis mandolins a bargain if you consider that $14000 - $15000 is alot less than a Loar. The fallout from Grisman has made the S.F. Bay Area a hot bed of mandolin players for along time and this would be a good place to display if LMI was more encouraging to mandolin builders.

[barry k]

I started in 1993, there was relatively few mando builders ( under 100). Back then there wasnt that much printed info available for mandolin. I think Siminoff might have had his how to book out by then?. Very few wood and parts suppliers then. The biggees in the business I can remember were Monteleone, Givens, Gilchrist, Randy Wood ,Nugget and of course Gibson. I guess Widespread shared info, availabilty of kits for some folks, internet in general is responsible for this so-called boom.