Flatiron Festivals

**Willie Poole** · Jul-20-2011, 10:15pm

I see where Janet Davis has listed a Flatiron Festival mandolin on the classifieds, it is listed as an F-2 F model....Is that what the Festivals are being called now that they are made overseas?...I wonder how these stack up to the Festivals that Gibson made in Nashville? I have a 2001 and it is a great mandolin, nice woody sound....<removed by moderator, place an ad in the classifieds>....

Willie

**MikeEdgerton** · Jul-20-2011, 10:41pm

That is one of the famous "Epiflat" mandolins, that Gibson has made in China. These have been discussed man times over the years, here is a memorable thread with a few pages of discussions.

**thejamdolinplayer** · Jul-21-2011, 8:41am

Here is a quick video of my Flatiron F2 import model.. Not a bad mando at all.

**Kbone** · Jul-21-2011, 8:55am

Nice sounding mando...

**Willie Poole** · Jul-21-2011, 2:30pm

I`d like some opinions on whether this makes the original Gibson Flatiron Festivals more or less valuable?

**MikeEdgerton** · Jul-21-2011, 6:53pm

It doesn't have any bearing on it. They simply reused the name. They are apples and oranges.

**DerTiefster** · Jul-21-2011, 7:58pm

No bearing on whether the Flatirons from the US are better or worse. No change in their quality. However, with an apples to oranges comparison, if someone starts selling apples bearing the "OrangeS" brand name, it will affect the orange sales price to the extent that advertising matters to the orange market. If the buyer of OrangeS doesn't like apples, he will be less likely to buy something labeled as an orange. That's just how advertising works. Now, if you believe that a large enough proportion of instrument buyers aren't affected by advertising, but make all of their purchase based upon tonal qualities in-hand, then there may be no effect at all. But that also discounts any collector market. A collector market might be either positively or negatively affected by re-use of the name. It at least keeps the name in the current market. Epiphone is one such name kept current by import instruments. If the name were to go extinct completely, would it turn into a positive ("they aren't making Epiphones any more") or negative ("what's an Epiphone?") for collectors in 10-20 yrs?

**MikeEdgerton** · Jul-21-2011, 10:53pm

I don't see anyone taking a hit on a Nashville or Bozeman Flatiron. It had no negative effect, they still sell. If anything it did what Gibson wanted it to do and brought people to the Chinese mandolin. As far as dragging the prices of the "real" Flatirons down, I just don't see it. I watch those prices here and on ebay and they are basically on the same level the have been in comparison to the same year Gibson mandolins.

**almeriastrings** · Jul-22-2011, 12:59am

I've got a Nashville Flatiron.. and it is a nice mando. To be fair, the Chinese one I saw a few months back was not actually bad at all either, and pretty good value. In one sense, it is a shame the name is now nothing more than a label... it is not unusual practice in musical marketing though... look at 'Recording King', for example. Same thing.

**Willie Poole** · Jul-22-2011, 9:56pm

It seems that there are quite a few real nice mandolins coming out of China now, I wonder if all of these come out of different factories? Is there any way to find out which factory builds each of them? It`s hard to believe that there are that many factories over there now and all making nice nsruments....I know years ago some different brand names were all made in the same factory in Japan...

Maybe that information isn`t made public, like a lot of products bearing different names but made in the same factory, like tires and batteries and some TV`s....

Just curious.....Willie