Page 1 of 52 123452651 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 25 of 1276

Thread: Northfield mandolins

  1. #1

    Default Northfield mandolins

    Went to IBMA and checked out the Northfield mandos at the Elderly booth........I was very impressed!!! Anyone that has gotten one, please post some pictures and your opinion on these.

  2. The following members say thank you to Skittle for this post:


  3. #2
    Confused... or?
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    Over the Hudson & thru the woods from NYC
    Posts
    2,927

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    Article on them in the current (quarterly) Mandolin magazine. Haven't read it yet, but they seemed to be highly impressed.
    - Ed

    "Then one day we weren't as young as before
    Our mistakes weren't quite so easy to undo
    But by all those roads, my friend, we've travelled down
    I'm a better man for just the knowin' of you."
    - Ian Tyson

  4. #3
    wood butcher Spruce's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Orcas Island, Washington
    Posts
    6,172

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    I got to check out the one that Stan Werbin brought to NAMM earlier this year...

    Just "wow"...

    One of the greatest bargains in the mando world, IMHO...

    There were about 15 of us that had gathered to play mandos (including the Northfield), and one gentleman--after playing it well for 15 minutes or so--put it down and said (after seeing just the "N" of the inlay) "those Nuggets are just amazing"...

    That mando just kicked, and I think it was going for 2K....

    Here's some guy taking a pic of it...
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

Name:	P1040383.jpg 
Views:	1768 
Size:	170.0 KB 
ID:	63808  

  5. #4

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    Surely there is someone that has bought a Northfield recently that can comment and put some photos on here

  6. #5
    Fret less, play more! NoNickel's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Bloomington, Illinois
    Posts
    489

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    There's one on eBay right now (NFI), so at least you could see some pretty good pictures.

    http://cgi.ebay.com/NORTHFIELD-F5-MA...item3f0425c5e1
    NoNickel

    Duff F5 #196/15
    Plays the "Irv Pearman" Signature Set

    All misspellings intentional. Even thsi one.

  7. #6
    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Howell, NJ
    Posts
    26,875

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    They're sold by Eldery (www.elderly.com). They have lots of good pictures.

  8. #7
    Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Location
    Central Illinois
    Posts
    3,563

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    Surprised to read that Northfield only offers a five year warranty!

  9. #8
    Fret less, play more! NoNickel's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Bloomington, Illinois
    Posts
    489

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    Made in China, yes? Does anyone know how they would compare to Eastman?
    NoNickel

    Duff F5 #196/15
    Plays the "Irv Pearman" Signature Set

    All misspellings intentional. Even thsi one.

  10. #9
    Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Location
    Central Illinois
    Posts
    3,563

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    Quote Originally Posted by NoNickel View Post
    Made in China, yes? Does anyone know how they would compare to Eastman?
    From what I have read about Northfield, they are consistent in sound/quality from one instrument to another, but Eastman may not be consistent from one model to another. An Eastman 505 may sound better than their top end 915 and there can be a wide difference in quality between instruments of same model number. I found this true with Eastmans but have never seen or played a Northfield.

  11. #10
    ************** Caleb's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    DFW, Texas
    Posts
    3,676

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    yankees1 is correct about the Eastmans. I have a 505 that I've put up against a 615 that sounded thin in comparison. I've also put it up against a 515 that made it sound like a toy. In my mind, the numbers on the varying Eastmans are meaningless when it comes to judging which will sound better. They are their own individual instruments with their own individual character when it comes to tone. That's obvious. My main point is to not let the model numbers fool you with Eastmans.

    On topic: The Northfields look great.
    ...

  12. The following members say thank you to Caleb for this post:


  13. #11
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    stuck in the recession
    Posts
    862

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    [QUOTE=Caleb;851294]yankees1 is correct about the Eastmans. I have a 505 that I've put up against a 615 that sounded thin in comparison. I've also put it up against a 515 that made it sound like a toy. In my mind, the numbers on the varying Eastmans are meaningless when it comes to judging which will sound better. They are their own individual instruments with their own individual character when it comes to tone. That's obvious. My main point is to not let the model numbers fool you with Eastmans.

    Same for Gibson As, Flatiron.....

    On topic: The Northfields sound great: not top of the heap (Gil, Nug) but far from bottom of the heap (insert your own lackluster perception).
    Bill

  14. #12

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    Any comments about Northfield mandolins, not Eastman! Anyone have a Northfield and can post some pics of theirs?

  15. #13
    mandolin slinger Steve Ostrander's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Capitol of MI
    Posts
    2,795

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    No pics, but I played one at Elderly a while back and I was impressed. I had never heard of them, and I played it and it was like, "Whoa...what is this?"
    Living’ in the Mitten

  16. #14
    Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Location
    Central Illinois
    Posts
    3,563

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Ostrander View Post
    No pics, but I played one at Elderly a while back and I was impressed. I had never heard of them, and I played it and it was like, "Whoa...what is this?"
    Northfield has a great reputation for quality and $2500. for a F5 is very tempting!

  17. #15
    wood butcher Spruce's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Orcas Island, Washington
    Posts
    6,172

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    Quote Originally Posted by yankees1 View Post
    Northfield has a great reputation for quality and $2500. for a F5 is very tempting!
    See, they've gone up 500 bucks already!

  18. #16
    Purveyor of Sunshine sgarrity's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    San Diego, CA
    Posts
    5,658

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    The sound clips are VERY impressive. I'd like to get hte chance to play one for awhile.

  19. #17

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    Quote Originally Posted by yankees1 View Post
    Northfield has a great reputation for quality and $2500. for a F5 is very tempting!
    Well for starters it would have to be almost three times as good as an LM-600 or LM-700 and twice as good as a KM-1000. That's a mighty nice mandolin, if true.

  20. #18

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    We were all sitting around our Appaloosa trade show booth at the IBMA World of Bluegrass, and Chris Warner (good friend, banjo icon and builder of the famous ‘signatures’ mandolin that Marty Stuart has played for most of his career) came over and asked me if I had a chance to check out the new Northfield mandolins over at the Elderly booth. I told him I hadn’t been over there yet…..he said to me….’man, if I had the money on me, I’d pick one of those up today…..they are incredible mandos for the price’. So with that, I went over to check them out, and I was certainly amazed, as it is uncanny to see and hear mandolins of that quality and attention to detail, available for that kind of price range. Killer mandolins that are definitely affordable.

  21. #19
    Member Ivyguitar's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Metro Atlanta
    Posts
    75

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    Well... Emory Lester just endorsed them...

    I was going to say that I played the one previously for sale on ebay about 2 years ago. It was still at Elderly and I compared it with several others. I thought it was a comparable mandolin to the Collings MF. It's best features were the vintage feeling neck, excellent setup and fretwork and vintage(gibson) tone. Don't get me wrong, the tone was quite different than the Collings, but fit,finish,volume and playbility were all in the same ballpark.

  22. #20

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    Hi All. Just wanted to jump in and say I appreciate all the nice comments regarding our mandolins. We've been working very hard lately as demand increases, paying a lot of attention to the finer details and improving steadily. We're confident that our instruments are very consistent and that we're getting better with each batch. I've been working on an archive of sorts with pictures of mandolins by serial number that we've made in the last 12 months. I'll try to post a few pics of instruments we're working on now as soon as I can upload them and then direct people that are interested in seeing more pics as soon as I can get them added to our website. If you haven't had a chance to check out our site please take a look, it's been upgraded recently.

    I'm also happy to answer any questions regarding our mandolins so please feel free to contact us directly. Thanks again to everyone for all of the encouragement. We aim to make the best mandolins we can and we've got our sights set pretty high. It'll be an ongoing journey and we look forward to working closely with all of you to continue to make them better and better.

    All the best,

    Adrian Bagale
    www.northfieldmandolins.com

  23. The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to Northfield mando For This Useful Post:


  24. #21
    Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Location
    Central Illinois
    Posts
    3,563

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    Quote Originally Posted by Northfield mando View Post
    Hi All. Just wanted to jump in and say I appreciate all the nice comments regarding our mandolins. We've been working very hard lately as demand increases, paying a lot of attention to the finer details and improving steadily. We're confident that our instruments are very consistent and that we're getting better with each batch. I've been working on an archive of sorts with pictures of mandolins by serial number that we've made in the last 12 months. I'll try to post a few pics of instruments we're working on now as soon as I can upload them and then direct people that are interested in seeing more pics as soon as I can get them added to our website. If you haven't had a chance to check out our site please take a look, it's been upgraded recently.

    I'm also happy to answer any questions regarding our mandolins so please feel free to contact us directly. Thanks again to everyone for all of the encouragement. We aim to make the best mandolins we can and we've got our sights set pretty high. It'll be an ongoing journey and we look forward to working closely with all of you to continue to make them better and better.

    All the best,

    Adrian Bagale
    www.northfieldmandolins.com
    Why just a five year warranty? Even Eastman offers a lifetime to original owner!

  25. #22

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    Hi Yankees1. Good Question. Unlike Eastman and several of the other companies people have been talking about, we're a small 5 person team, not a big company with lots of resources and production in the thousands. I say that because many of the larger factories often replace the instrument rather than repairing it, and that's not a real option for us. On one side, it's easier to control quality and maintain your production when you're such a small outfit. Having come from the background of higher turnover and large production facilities I can assure everyone that we know without a doubt that our building practices and approach could warrant extended coverage. Plainly put: We're confident that our mandolins are going to be around for a long, long time--we wouldn't build them otherwise. However, on the other side it's also much harder to predict the future with a small outfit like ours. The true definition of "Lifetime" gets harder to pin down when you're set-up like a workshop, almost like an individual builder. And then there's the warranty registration, etc which we have found to be lacking real good/solid information.

    I can tell you that right now we're thinking about a way to offer a Lifetime warranty to the original owner, yet we wouldn't be doing our best homework if we didn't know the exact terms and could lay them out clearly for everyone. At any rate, we'll have more information about that soon as it's right at the top of our list of important developments to come.

    We'll be standing behind any instrument that comes out of our shop. We're always just a phone call or email away and we're happy to help solve problems or recondition instruments if need be. We've picked Elderly Instruments as our only dealer right now because of our close association (I worked there for a long time) and confidence in their abilities to help us inspect and service any instrument needing additional care. This way we'll be able to maintain relationships with owners of our instruments and quickly resolve issues if they come up.

    I hope all of this helps.

  26. The following members say thank you to Northfield mando for this post:


  27. #23
    Purveyor of Sunshine sgarrity's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    San Diego, CA
    Posts
    5,658

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    I don't know what the exact numbers are but there's an awful lot of instruments that aren't kept for a "lifetime" by the original owner. If the instrument is built well a warranty isn't all that important.

  28. The following members say thank you to sgarrity for this post:


  29. #24
    Rick Everhardt reverhar's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    NC
    Posts
    88
    Blog Entries
    1

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    I just received my Northfield MF-5 two days ago and can't seem to be able to put it down. Great tone and playability. For the cost, I don't think you can beat it.

  30. The following members say thank you to reverhar for this post:


  31. #25
    Rick Everhardt reverhar's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    NC
    Posts
    88
    Blog Entries
    1

    Default Re: Northfield mandolins

    Attached are pictures that I just took of Northfield #34.

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	P1010989_1.jpg 
Views:	1133 
Size:	139.7 KB 
ID:	64465Click image for larger version. 

Name:	P1010981_1.jpg 
Views:	1145 
Size:	252.0 KB 
ID:	64464Click image for larger version. 

Name:	P1010987_1.jpg 
Views:	1111 
Size:	163.3 KB 
ID:	64463Click image for larger version. 

Name:	P1010980_1.jpg 
Views:	1305 
Size:	188.5 KB 
ID:	64462Click image for larger version. 

Name:	P1010985_1.jpg 
Views:	1088 
Size:	173.3 KB 
ID:	64460Click image for larger version. 

Name:	P1010759_1..jpg 
Views:	1212 
Size:	108.0 KB 
ID:	64466

  32. The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to reverhar For This Useful Post:


Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •