It's baaaaaack!

[Links]

Here it is again #- #price dropped to 400K. #I've offered to trade a $200,000 signed photo of Harry Truman and a $200,000 autograph of Strom Thurmond #- # both better known than Sheridan Downey!


<a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/SHERIDAN-DOWNEYS-1936-A-00-GIBSON-MANDOLIN-S-423B_W0QQitemZ330259794746QQcmdZViewItem?hash

=item330259794746&_trkparms=39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3 A3&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14.l1318" target="_blank">http://cgi.ebay.com/SHERIDA....4.l1318</a>

[John Hill]

Free shipping though...

[jefflester]

The previous thread for reference. If anybody reading is unfamiliar with the previous discussion, I suggest reading that one first.

[JEStanek]

This is funnier the second time around.

Jamie

[laddy jota]

Sheridan Downey was the only U.S senator to have a Gibson mandolin finish named after him. The reserve price suggests that he may have been on the USS Titanic when it went down. If the reserve price continues to go down $100K with each listing, we are just 4 auctions away from an actual sale. I might even bid if we get down into triple digits left of decimal. It looks like a steal for $900.

[jefflester]

Sheridan Downey was the only U.S senator to have a Gibson mandolin finish named after him. The reserve price suggests that he may have been on the USS Titanic when it went down.

Make that the RMS Titanic

The unsinkable Sheridan Browney #

[Mike Bunting]

I see that he had a piezo pickup on it way back then!

[Links]

He's only losing two hundred and something thousand on this rock bottom sale!

[Eric F.]

I think I'll bid. The $25 back with the eBay MasterCard coupled with the $2,000 in buyer protection from PayPal make it too, too tempting to pass up.

[Zigeuner]

Take a look at the picture of the top. Is that some sort of pickup wire going from the rear of the bridge, over the top and then disappearing into the bass side F hole?

This could be an important forensic fact. Could it mean that the good senator was hard of hearing or even deaf and in need of some amplification? If this is true and the pickup is there and is original, it must be one of the earliest examples of electrification of a mandolin anywhere.

The plot, and the provenance, thickens. One can almost hear the good senator sitting in his tent on safari somewhere trying to tune the thing with all of that feedback from his early mono amp. while one of his native helpers cranks a small generator. A little over, a little under but never quite right and in tune. Oh the humanity!

[Greg H.]

Naw, if you read the fine print the pickup (and the grover tuners and a new bridge) were added by a subsequent owner who purchased the mandolin from the senator's estate for a modest $649,000.

[F5GRun]

As for the pick-up. He never Claims its original, he only says its a new martin thinline...and Its HOT!!!! And I just cant imagine this HOT of a pick up in the middle of a safari, with no A/C!!! just unreal.

It also looks like the mandolin has made the trip halfway around the world since the last auction...its in Cali now! ??

[Zigeuner]

Naw, if you read the fine print the pickup (and the grover tuners and a new bridge) were added by a subsequent owner who purchased the mandolin from the senator's estate for a modest $649,000.

Oh, I missed that. Well, that's ineresting. So much for provenance. If it's not original I don't want it anymore. You'd think that they would have had enough brains to leave it exactly the way it was when allegedly played by the senator.

[Eddie Sheehy]

There's a slight scratch in the finish and you can see a glint of yellow metal underneath.....it's made of SOLID GOLD.....

[markishandsome]

Q: Sir, Who appraised this instrument for you? I have Hubert Humphrey's piccolo and I would like to have it appraised.
A: We have some nice real estate on Saturn's moon for sale too. Someone should buy it(like Obama), and he could play it before the Senate. He might impress some people. Might even help him get elected. A much better idea than spending millions on worthless advertising.

Someone should buy the mandolin so the seller can buy a sense of humor. Or a brain...

[JHo]

Naw, if you read the fine print the pickup (and the grover tuners and a new bridge) were added by a subsequent owner who purchased the mandolin from the senator's estate for a modest $649,000.

I'd (possibly) believe that he bought it at that estate sale for $649.00, but $649,000.00, yeah sure. This guy is crazier than...I don't even know what. It is even funnier the second time around.

[Timbofood]

It IS funnier the more it comes around!

[Jim MacDaniel]

The same seller recently sold an Alvarez acoustic guitar. It sold for only $113.50, which is a pretty good deal for a guitar that "will rival the best acoustic / electric guitars out there", so I'm guessing it must have been owned by a congressional page at best.

[SGraham]

QUOTE
"Sheridan Downey made the cover of TIME magazine in 1938, being the laymen for the "Ham and Eggs" campaign, which later became the nations Social Security."

From the lister's description here, it seems that the good senator must have been very large, at least the size of two ordinary men, since he was a laymen. That could account for his popularity; his vote counted for two.

Now, I want to know why those Democrats in 1938 would put such a valuable colleague to work making a magazine cover...

Also, how does a campaign, no matter how appetizing its title, become a pair of nations both sporting the same name? Maybe the exchange rate in the twin nations of Social Security is 1,000-to-one...

Steve

[Eddie Sheehy]

It's one way of making a "secret" campaign contribution....it might even catch on. Hubert Humphries pecadillos must be worth millions.....

[Links]

Quote : "Naw, if you read the fine print the pickup (and the grover tuners and a new bridge) were added by a subsequent owner who purchased the mandolin from the senator's estate for a modest $649,000."

I've gotten carried away bidding at auctions before, but I usually try to curb my enthusiasm at twice the value of the item #- #in this case $1500. #Talk about buyer's remorse! #How do you tell the wife?

[laddy jota]

Eric Stroeve is apparently married to Sheridan Downey's daughter of Grass Valley, California. Sheridan Downey's widow has passed away so presumably, his daughter would have inherited the senator's little "pride and joy". There would be no need to buy it. The mandolin is located in Grass Valley now while Eric must be in the Netherlands. Notice that he took his "Eagles and Angels" (There will never be another song like Eagles and Angels) license plate cover and a few copies of the Flying Dutchman CD with him to the Netherlands because those auction items are to ship from there. Perhaps the idea for the mandolin auction came up in an Amsterdam coffee shop with a few well-deserved giggles. Of course, we all have gotten a few laughs out of it too.

[man dough nollij]

Yeah, we know what goes on in Amsterdam "coffee shops". That explains a lot!

[Links]

Quote: "Eric Stroeve is apparently married to Sheridan Downey's daughter of Grass Valley, California."

That probably explains the $649,000 sales price at the "estate" auction. I'm trying to figure out the tax/inheritance ramifications regarding a sale of that magnitude, but I can't sort it out. Maybe each family member was given several million in "monopoly money" and bid on the things that they wanted from the estate. I have heard of that being done!

[MikeEdgerton]

"...the pick guard was missing(did Sheridan prefer to play that way?)"

This begs the bigger question. Does anyone care how Sheridan preferred to play? There is abundant mystery and intrigue here at least in the mind of the seller.