Herb, looks like you're looking at what we call "student" or "entry level" instruments. #Copley is a Tennessee-based company that sells a plethora of brass, wind, and string instruments. #Here's a link to their mandolin page, where they list four models with prices ranging from $145 to $579. #Though I didn't find any explicit references, they are almost certainly Asian imports.
Their top two models, the CFM-100 and CFM-200, are advertised as having solid spruce tops; the CFM-200 is also supposed to have solid back and sides. #While they advertise a "hand-carved scroll," they don't say that the tops are carved, and in that price range they're almost certainly pressed rather than carved.
The conventional consensus is that solid wood is better acoustically than laminated wood, and it makes more of a difference in the top, the primary vibrating surface, than in the back and sides, which do vibrate to some extent but are largely reflective. #The consensus is also that a real carved top, whether computer shaped and hand-finished, or totally hand-carved, sounds better than a pressed top. #There are zillions of different instruments out there, and it would be presumptuous to say that every solid-wood instrument sounds better than every laminated one, or that every carved-top sounds better than every pressed-top. #In any case, cost of materials and workmanship generally means that solid-wood, hand-carved instruments are significantly costlier than laminated, pressed-top instruments.
So what you would notice if you went to an "actually good instrument," might well be better, more complex sound, with more volume. #You also probably wouldn't have to dress frets, cut down the nut, and go through all the other gyrations that owners do to improve "student" instruments (replace the tailpiece, replace the bridge, tweak the truss rod, etc. etc.).
Hundreds of thousands of mandolins probably leave Asia every year, headed for the US. #Some come from smaller shops that stress handwork (Eastman, the new The Loars, Jade); others are made in larger factories that make them to different importers' specs, with various nameplates and design nuances, but basically similar instruments. #Not having played a Copley, I can't say where yours falls, but an all-solid-wood F-style for less than $600 list is probably not going to feature a lot of handwork. #Doesn't mean it won't be a playable instrument, capable of giving you a lot of enjoyment, but I do think that if you compare it against a well-made, mid-range instrument, you'll find the more expensive one to have more to offer. #As well it should, for the higher price.
Allen Hopkins
Gibsn: '54 F5 3pt F2 A-N Custm K1 m'cello
Natl Triolian Dobro mando
Victoria b-back Merrill alumnm b-back
H-O mandolinetto
Stradolin Vega banjolin
Sobell'dola Washburn b-back'dola
Eastmn: 615'dola 805 m'cello
Flatiron 3K OM
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