Re: Mandolin buying advice
Originally Posted by
Brutus1999
How in the world does one determine that a $1000 guitar is "twice as good" as a $1000 mandolin, or put another way, that it takes $2,000 to buy a mandolin that is equal to a $1000 guitar?
That is a fair question, so let's define the premise a bit more accurately. The issue isn't actually one of "mandolins-vs-guitars" (where most of us envision a Gibson-style f-hole mando and a Martin-style flat-top guitar); it's one of "archtops-vs-flattops". Ever notice how much a good archtop jazz guitar costs? Yikes!
A quality archtop (whether guitar or mandolin), with its carved top & back and floating bridge & tailpiece, will always be more expensive than an equivalent guitar (or the rare mandolin) with a flat-ish (certainly not "carved) top & back and a glued-in-place bridge & saddle.
Since it takes about twice the time & effort to build an archtop instrument, the practical result is that, at any specific price point, the archtop instrument will be about half the quality of a similarly-priced flattop. Add some scrolls to that archtop and the comparison just gets worse.
Hope that eases your confusion!
- 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
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