Mystery Gibson on Boston CraigsList

**mrmando** · Jul-23-2012, 12:01pm

On Saturday, the following appeared on the Boston CraigsList:

Old Gibson mandolin ($1200)
Model F4....label says Loar....looks solid but needs cleaning and the strings look no longer any good..I do not play....came to me from passed Grandfather..pictures on request

No such thing as a Loar F4, of course ... but if this was an F4 it was a screamin' deal, and if it was a Loar it was like stealing the holy grail.

I never found out anything more about it -- I didn't see the ad until six hours after it was posted, and I guess by then it was too late. The seller never replied to me, and now the ad is gone. Anyone got more information?

**G7MOF** · Jul-23-2012, 12:24pm

Can it not be found from the old link, it's possible to do so on Ebay?

**mrmando** · Jul-23-2012, 12:36pm

No, Craigslist doesn't keep old ads on its servers the way eBay does. Once deleted, it's gone.

But I copied the entire ad into my post above ... minus the location and the email address. There was nothing more to see.

**f5loar** · Jul-23-2012, 2:06pm

Maybe it was a typo and he meant to say it was $120,000 which I think a really good F4 signed by Lloyd Loar would bring that much or more. Those one of a kind signed Loars tend to bring more money than the regular signed Loars.

**mrmando** · Jul-23-2012, 2:14pm

Heh. There was obviously at least one typo in that ad. The question is, where? Did he type 4 when he meant 5?

There are several different things it could have been, with "real Loar F5" down at the bottom of the list, in the 0.01% range ...

**f5loar** · Jul-23-2012, 2:58pm

Top of the list is it was a Fake Gibson mandolin.

**mrmando** · Jul-23-2012, 3:07pm

Originally Posted by f5loar

Top of the list is it was a Fake Gibson mandolin.

Yep!

**almeriastrings** · Jul-23-2012, 3:37pm

Or no mandolin at all.... but the "owner" has suddenly, and unexpectedly had to rush off to some distant locale to care for critically ill granny, mom or uncle, and has to sell it urgently to pay for medical bills. Someone else has offered $1K. He will hold it for you if you wire $600 by Western Union.... you can pay the rest when he gets back....

Words like "Gibson" and "Loar" are sucker magnets to scammers...

**mrmando** · Jul-23-2012, 4:10pm

Originally Posted by almeriastrings

Or no mandolin at all.... but the "owner" has suddenly, and unexpectedly had to rush off to some distant locale to care for critically ill granny, mom or uncle, and has to sell it urgently to pay for medical bills.

If it were a scam, the guy would have tried to scam everyone who replied to the ad, which means I'd at least have heard from him.

**vhughes2000** · Jul-23-2012, 4:16pm

I fired off an email within 2 minutes of the posting..Nothing...If it was one heck of a good deal someone local most likely snagged it..The boston area is full of mando hounds,so i'm told by a fellow picker friend who lives there...Or,it could have been a real joke.. As the post above mentioned why didn't the poster respond to any emails.

**f5loar** · Jul-23-2012, 4:34pm

"....the strings look no longer any good" Is that the way Bostionians talk? Sounds like Yoda (from Star Wars) be the seller he might. This ad is way too fishy to be true or false. Got to be a scam.

**bluegrasser78** · Jul-23-2012, 5:14pm

Originally Posted by f5loar

"....the strings look no longer any good" Is that the way Bostionians talk? Sounds like Yoda (from Star Wars) be the seller he might. This ad is way too fishy to be true or false. Got to be a scam.

mmmm...right I am with you.....wrong something must be

**Steve L** · Jul-24-2012, 7:26am

Kinds of people many in Boston here there be. Syntax and grammar to some important are not.

**mrmando** · Sep-07-2012, 12:42pm

Well, it came back yesterday, for a few hours at least:

Old Gibson Mandolin maybe 1920's 30's label Loyd Loar yellow gold and brown stripes horizontilly in the wood ...looks nice and solid no cracks ,defects or repairs obvious but needs a good cleaning and the strings should be replaced....has the case....I do not play...passed down to me I listed this before but I had it wrong as an F4 then computer crashed and I lost all messages can send photos

And once again the ad is already gone.

**almeriastrings** · Sep-10-2012, 1:59am

There are lot of Loar-signed 1930's F4's in Nigeria.

Not a lot of people know that.

**f5loar** · Sep-10-2012, 9:33pm

And don't forget about all the Loars popping up in the Panama Canal region.

**almeriastrings** · Sep-11-2012, 11:06am

No doubt. Funny how those really, really rare Lloyd Loar's get around....

On a more interesting note, I know Jim Mills found a superb pre-war Mastertone in South Africa a few years ago. It's in his Gibson banjo history book which is a great read for any vintage instrument hunter.