Anyone do business with First Quality Music Supply

**wallflower** · Mar-18-2004, 5:16pm

I can highly recommend First Quality. #They are very good to deal with!

**JD Cowles** · Mar-18-2004, 5:24pm

i bought a supercase from them a few years back. the fella i talked to spent a good bit of time on the phone with me while i hemmed and hawed about the purchase. they are good folks.

jd

**Scotti Adams** · Mar-18-2004, 5:32pm

..absolutely...

**Hoyt** · Mar-18-2004, 6:00pm

First rate.

**PickinFool** · Mar-18-2004, 6:14pm

My dealings with First Quality Music go back to the late '70's during my former life as a banjo player and builder.

#Bill Sullivan runs a first class operation. #You can't go wrong doing business with them.

**Flowerpot** · Mar-18-2004, 6:20pm

They have some of the best customer service, fast delivery, good advice... I wish more businesses operated like them. I order from them often and am always pleased.

**GTison** · Mar-18-2004, 7:43pm

top notch. very established . great prices. great service. there's no better IMO

Mar-18-2004, 9:01pm

The Best !

**mandoJeremy** · Mar-18-2004, 9:39pm

I will agree that they are the best I have ever ordered from!

**pickinNgrinnin** · Mar-18-2004, 10:11pm

1st rate operation. I've had nothing but great experiences with FQMS

**Nick Triesch** · Mar-18-2004, 10:28pm

They are quick and terrific to work with. Nick

**BigJoe** · Mar-18-2004, 11:10pm

Great people, great products (especially Gibson), and will do the job right. They are quality from the top down!!!

**Albert Whiting** · Mar-19-2004, 2:12am

they have incredible customer service. they are awesome!

**brian2** · Mar-19-2004, 7:44am

First Quality is first rate! I've done business with them, and they are the quickest, nicest people I've ever dealt with. Can't beat their prices either!
Brian

**Larry S Sherman** · Mar-19-2004, 8:12am

I bought a nice assortment of picks from them, and my friend followed up with a similar order. We were both very happy with them.

Larry

**Mando4Life** · Mar-19-2004, 8:16am

I bought my mando from them and my brother bought his HD-28V there. Great folks, great service, and an unbelievable selection of instruments and the like....

**JimW** · Mar-19-2004, 9:10am

I order from them almost exclusively. If one was looking for a perfect business model, First Qualities marriage of "bricks and mortar" and "online ordering" would be it. I have nothing but great things to say about them. They have a large selection of quality instruments, a knowledgeable sales staff, and if you're ordering online, they ship fast. This is the real deal.

Jim Watts

**Lee** · Mar-19-2004, 10:14am

I needed a set of custom strings for a 10-string mando. Got on the phone, got right through to Michelle. She posts here occasionally. Super friendly, helpful, two-days later several sets are at my door. I prefer to support the small local stores but if they don't have what I want, and since FQMS was such a pleasant purchasing experience, I'd go back without a second thought.

**danman** · Mar-19-2004, 12:15pm

I've dealt with FQMS for many years. I have ALWAYS had a pleasant experience with them. Service, prices and people are all first class.

**mandoryan** · Mar-19-2004, 12:57pm

Great guys and a wonderful store. I have to wear a bib every time I go down there.

# Staff is top, top notch! #

J75's for 4 bucks a pop too. Can't beat it!....

**John Ely** · Mar-19-2004, 1:52pm

Yup, they are good. I ordered some small goods a few weeks ago - strings and picks - and accidentally clicked the 2 day delivery tab without noticing. They called to ask if I really wanted to do that, and also to say that while one item (tortis pick) was not available, they would ship it as soon as it arrived, no extra delivery charge. I was most impressed.

By the way, I really like the new tortis picks. The old tortis did nothing for me, but these are very good, and remind me a lot of the real thing.

**Russ(String-Alley)** · Mar-19-2004, 1:56pm

DITTO!
the tops!

**Skip Kelley** · Mar-19-2004, 8:06pm

They are the best! I wouldn't do business with anyone else.

**J. Wiens** · Mar-20-2004, 12:10pm

Well I'll bite, My experiences with FQMS have nearly all been bad ones . Let's see where to begin. As a luthier my experiences have all been with their luthier's materials. So keep that in mind.

I've had them send me pearl dots that were not close to round ,I found this out only as I had drilled my holes in my fingerboards to size and was inlaying the dots....Looks like they tried making them with a plug cutter.

They've sent me a mando bridge with a top that looked like a dog had chewed on it...One of their high end "sullivan " bridges. When I demanded a replacement ,instead of apologizing , they made me feel as though my knowledge of what's what was questionable, and that they were doing me a favor by sending a new one.

They sent me Gotoh mando tuners that were the bizarre ( by mando standards) post below shaft type ....unusable to me and almost any builder of bluegrass mandolins. Since FQMS is supposed to be about bluegrass it is strange that they would stock them and try to flog them to BG mando builders.

Their abalone inlays ,besides being chunky and inaccurate replicas of well-known patterns, are not natural abalone as they would have you believe. They are abalam. a man-made sheet stock that is made of thousands of abalone veneers pressed in epoxy . Very colorful , but not real abalone. This difference should be stated in the catalog.

I could go on but I'll skip to the the shipping problems. Being that I live in Canada I always insist that they send my package regular post to avoid hassles. I can't tell you how many times they have disregarded my request and sent it UPS or Fedex anyway.....Enter the overpriced Fedex and UPS customs brokers and a whole lotta BS...... usually costing me $50 or more shipping for just a small package.

When they did this again for the umpteenth time I finally got pissed and refused a package and it was returned to them . I spelled out to them on the phone that they had made this mistake several times before and told them to try shipping by usps like I had requested . They did .....and still charged me the full Fedex return shipping plus the usps shipping.

I also notice that they always bill my credit card several times per shipment...I don't know what they're doing or why they can't add up a total and have it show up as one price on my statement as other companies do. It always looks kinda sketchy to me and I suspect they make a good deal of profit in shipping charges.

After 10 years of this kinda thing, I've given up getting angry with them and now I just assume that I'm likely gonna get ripped in some way everytime I order from them..... Which I still do occasionally believe it or not. There's just not many alternatives for supplies if you live out-of-the-way like i do. I will say they generally do have nice customer service people on the phone :-)....Jamie

**Chris Baird** · Mar-20-2004, 10:40pm

I've had a number of problems with building supplies as well. I don't think they take that part of their operation seriously. Thier supplies are consistenly of lower quality than those I've found elsewhere for the same prices.