Alzarez Yairi F Style Mandolin MY-1000

[Brad Putt]

Wow! Its RARE when you cant find ANY pictures or Info on an item from a major producer like Alvarez Yairi, but thats what I have found myself with!

I own a small Inde Music store in East Tennessee and bought this one today, any help would be appreciated as far as info on this bad boy.

It was a one owner mandolin, bought it from the family.

Thanks in advance for whatever yall can help me with!

[MikeEdgerton]

Is the name Yari anywhere on that instrument?

[paul dirac]

Is the name Yari anywhere on that instrument?

Well, that's clearly the AY logo on the headstock. What were you thinking, Mike?

[MikeEdgerton]

Actually St. Louis music uses that logo on more than the Yari built instruments. I'm just curious because I never saw a mandolin built by Kazuo Yairi. St. Louis Music always sold Alvarez and Alvarez-Yari instruments. They weren't one in the same, they were two lines. I'd love to know that Yari built a carved top mandolin before he died. I owned several of his guitars that weren't sold by St. Louis music. When this one was built Yari used to burn his signature into the top.

With that said St. Louis Music has imported Alvarez mandolins over the years from what appears to be different manufacturers. Every now and then one will pop up with a number that doesn't correspond to others, almost like they bought a few to see how they'd do.

The place to start any search for information on an unknown model number (and this one appears to be unknown) might be St. Louis Music. It may be that they brought this one in by itself and didn't follow it up with any more production. Only they would know that.

This one has the typical copy of the 70's Gibson fretboard inlays and a little different 3 screw truss rod cover. Odd tuning machines as well. I think it might be more 70's than 80's as it is advertised on Reverb but only SLM can provide that information. Maybe somebody will have a catalog page.

http://www.stlouismusic.com/

[dtb]

wasn't Yari for Alverez, kinda like Sumi and Kentucky?


Dan

[Jeff Mando]

Being a fan of Alvarez and Yairi guitars from the 70's, here's what I know. (and it may or may not apply to their mandolins) AY on the peghead is Alvarez Yairi and a double AA with the feet of the A's almost touching is an older Alvarez. Both of these are Japan made instruments. Supposedly, the better Yairi instruments are signed by K. Yairi on the label. However, there seems to be a range of models from plain to fancy, so I'm not sure K. Yairi signed all of them. Supposedly, the Yairi instruments were superior to the Alvarez instruments, but in talking to some Japanese vintage guitar dealers who worked for Alvarez, certain models of Alvarez guitars are considered the equal of the Yairi models. Such as the tree of life model 5056 Alvarez, a high quality guitar, in that (like Martin), they only let their best craftsmen do inlay work. To confound the confusion, some models were only available to the Japanese market and only rarely appear for sale in the US, sometimes brought back by a soldier or businessman. Another thing I remember is that Alvarez and Yairi use different dating systems to determine the age of the instrument -- one does not correspond to the other.

As far as this mandolin is concerned a better picture of the label might give us a few more clues. I've seen tons of Alvarez F style mandolins, but never a Yairi mandolin, but that is just based on my own experience working in used/vintage retail.

I just looked at the Reverb ad that Mike referred to and there are additional pictures of the label. I also see the seller has a very hopeful price in mind, IMHO. Once in a great while, I've seen some of the "lawsuit era" made in Japan D-45 copy guitars go for close to that on eBay, but it is very rare with most of the best ones going for half or less. Hard to say what this mandolin might be worth, but I'm thinking a lot less. Of course, it just takes the right person to appreciate it.........

And it is probably a fantastic instrument!

[Jeff Mando]

Going long, here...........

The Yairi instruments were carefully marketed back in the day with the focus on quality and craftsmanship. With the guitars, they were trying to get some of the Martin market. They were cheaper than a Martin but not by much. The appeal for me, was finding some of these great instruments on the used market for cheap prices. I've bought every one I've seen at pawn shops and music stores over the years, some for as little as $89 and the range seems to go up to $250, and they are fantastic instruments -- at that price! Same with 70's solid top Takamines, Aria Pro II, and certain Ibanez from the 70's. I recently saw one of the D-45 copies for $800 at a music store in Birmingham, Alabama and for me, that was way too much money. Nice guitar, though. The "problem" for me is that when you are talking $1800 for a mandolin, you suddenly have quite a few choices..........

[Bill Kammerzell]

Going long, here...........

The "problem" for me is that when you are talking $1800 for a mandolin, you suddenly have quite a few choices..........

Yes and it would not be a Pac Rim knock off for me. Now we are talking Collings, Weber, Breedlove (USA made) if it is my $1800.00 being spent.

[MikeEdgerton]

And that answers that question.

[allenhopkins]

So is a printed Yairi signature same as "signed by K. Yairi on the label"?

[Jeff Mando]

So is a printed Yairi signature same as "signed by K. Yairi on the label"?

Not really. Usually there is an ink signature to the left of the printed information. You can search Google and see some examples, at least on the guitars. The printed label usually reads Alvarez by K. Yairi or sometimes Alvarez by Kazuo Yairi. To confuse things further, there was another Yairi who made guitars in Japan in the 60's (not K. Yairi) and those are sometimes advertised as Yairi's, which technically they are. None of this would apply to the mandolin in question. If it were signed, I'm sure he would have shown a picture of it, since he posted four pictures of various sections of the label, as seen through the f-hole.

[MikeEdgerton]

It gets better.


In the 1960s and 1980s Sadao Yairi, made guitars under the S. Yairi name. H. (Hiroshi) Yairi is Sadao Yairi's son, and made acoustic guitars under his supervision (and usually signed and/or stamped by S. Yairi). Sadao was Kazuo Yairi's uncle...

I never saw any H. Yairi guitars but I saw plenty of S. Yairi guitars. All were classical nylon string models. I don't know if they made anything else.