Loar lore...

[steve V. johnson]

Please forgive me, I haven't done even any casual research (I guess this is my introduction to Loar research...<GG>) on Lloyd Loar mandolin ... lore, so this question is probably really ignorant to all of you Loar Loyalists...

How many signed LL mandos are there in the world?

The question was prompted by the LL F5 for sale in the Cafe Classifieds.
The price suggests that there are very few...

Many thanks,

stv

[mandophil(e)]

Steve:

Check out the thread about Loars in the "Post a picture of your mandolin" section. All of your questions will be answered--and then some.
By the way, I had a chance to spend a little time with the Loar currently for sale. It was, in my very humble opinion, a really, really good one.

[steve V. johnson]

Thank you!

I knew it was all here somewhere.

stv

[danb]

263 Loar signed total, made up of
215 F5 mandolins
22 L5 guitars
19 H5 mandolas
6 K5 mandocellos
1 10-string mando-viola. No signature label, but was Loar's well-documented personal instrument

[bgmando]

How many of those Loars are currently accounted for?

[PatrickH]

Isn't there one A model Loar that Tut Tayor owns?

[Darryl Wolfe]

262 Loar Period Instruments (verified)
213 Mandolins, F
1 Mandolins, A
18 Mandolas, H
6 Mando-cellos, K
23 Guitars, L
1 Mando-viola

My totals are a bit off from Dans...these are all accounted for. #I must be missing one mandolin and one mandola for a total of 264..assuming the A is in his F count. His count appears to be missing one L5 guitar

Actual production estimates are at a minimum:
386 Total Loar instruments
313 Total Loar mandolins, F
1 Total Loar mandolins, A
21 Total Loar mandolas
11 Total Loar mando-cellos
39 Total Loar guitars
1 Total Loar mando-violas

[Darryl Wolfe]

ok, back to pictures. Just another decent shot of 73992

[Darryl Wolfe]

Here are my latest totals

266 Loar Period Instruments (verified)
216 Mandolins, F (one without signature label, but 23 serial number)
1 Mandolins, A
19 Mandolas, H
6 Mando-cellos, K
22 Guitars, L (one late 24 instrument with suspect signature label)
1 Mando-viola (no signature label)

[kudzugypsy]

here's the question i have - how long do you think the order production process was - this feat of over 300 mandolins in a 2 year period is astounding (and we're talking a brand new never done design before...well, they did have the basic f shape, but certainly R&D had to be done for them to come out as *perfect* as they did)
so, i am a mandolinist in 1923, i hear about these new mandos from someone, and put in my order - what do you think the time would be til i had it? judging by production totals, they must have started taking pre-orders 1-2 years before. i would assume finishing alone was a 4-month process.

i bet a modern day gibson couldnt crank out that many MM's today in a 2 year period.

[f5loar]

That had more than one guy doing it probably more like at least 4 and more like 6 that could build one. They had top end dealers that had standing orders that got them pretty quick so it was still a dealer thing back then unless you knew someone in the factory in which case you probably traveled to MI and picked it up in person. Shipping in those days was not quite as good or fast as FEDEx,UPS is today. They even had a coupon in CRESCENDO magazine on a full page ad for the new F5 that said "I would like to try a Master Mandolin. Please ship one on 10 days approval to address below" You can't get that long of an aprroval time today! And it sounds like a send no money offer too.
So they had to have kept a few on hand to handle these ads.
I'd say it was at least a year lag time from time of order.
They caught up real fast by 1928.

[Darryl Wolfe]

It has been established that a Feb 8 23 mandolin is depicted in Cat N (1923) #The exact issue date of Cat N is not known

The brass template used for the peghead of the A-5 has a date on it for when it was made. #That date is only a short period before the Sept 20 23 signature date. #I don't remember the date, but is was no more than 6-8 weeks before the signature date.

I personally think 24 mandolins went through the line in about 2 months max. #It is also interesting to note that early on there was essentially a minimum of a 24 mandolin batch for each month, with some months having more. #

With that being said, a parallel can be drawn with late year mandolins. #July 9 23 mandolins were followed by Dec 11, 23's. #It should be safe to say that the lDec mandos were not even started in July. #In 1924, March 31 24 mandos were followed by Dec 1 24. #But in this case the ton of L5's H5's and K5's were made in between. #Again, I think the Dec mandos were started way after the March ones.

Another interesting aspect is some 1923 shipping dates. #Several early Feb signed mandolins were officially shipped in Oct. #A late Feb mandolin was shipped in Dec. #These records are sketchy, but there are also certain mandolins being shipped a week or so after signature dates.

[Joe Parker]

How did the drying time for the varnish finishes affect the production dating and shipping schedules? I would think that the Master Models had to have been hanging up a while before they could be shipped. Were the labels signed before or after the drying period? Just curious.

JPP

[Ken Waltham]

My March 31/1924 Loar was purchased by Walter K Bauer, a well known Gibson agent and teacher, new, in 1928.
I have his letter to that effect. That's quite a lag time, suggesting many must have stayed in the factory......??

[mandoman15]

124 unnacounted for instruments!

100 lost loars
3 missing mandolas
5 hiding cellos
16 hibernating guitars

i would hope that out of this 1247 losts instruments that at least some of them still exist, hiding out in grandmas attic... has there ever been any scouring (nation wide) for these lost gems? that just too many instruments! we should arrange a highly publiscised search for the lost instruments... any mathmeticians out there that can estimate how many are still around?

[ronlane3]

Can't stop to do the math, too busy searching for one to buy at a bargain basement price.

[steve V. johnson]

Thanks for all the great information! Fascinating stuff!

stv

[Steven Stone]

[Can't stop to do the math, too busy searching for one to buy at a bargain basement price. ]

Given the odds, especially since you can't stop to do the math, a better use of your time would be driving from state to state to "invest" in powerball tickets. The odds of success are about the same. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

With Ebay, Google and other search engines, and "This Old House", your chances of finding a Loar in the hands of an ignorant seller you can steal from are slim to none.

[Big Joe]

Let me make a couple corrections. #First, it was a three year period that the Loar era instruments were being built, not 2. #Secondly, the guys were building mandolins, not Loars. #They had no idea that they would be so highly regarded 80 years later. #They were just doing production and getting a paycheck like most of us today. #They built as many as was reasonable. #The mandolin was just beyond its peak so they were trying to ramp up production to drive a new interest in the instrument that got them that far. #The mandolin was quickly being replaced by banjo and ultimately the guitar also started by Loar. #The arch topped guitar gave the guitar the drive it needed to be heard in a band environment. #This encouraged the factory to pump mandolins out the door as quickly as they could. #This is evidenced by the in home trials they advertised at the time. #

In the years the current MM's and DMM's have been produced, we have made less than 100. #I don't have an exact number, but I do know it is well under 100. #Our production is quite different from 1923. #We have to build the bread and butter mandolins first and the MM's as we can. #They are far more time consuming and we want them to be a cut above everything else.

[danb]

I would also point out that taking advantage of someone who doesn't know what they have is deeply unethical..

[f5loar]

You have to apply statistics to those remaining 124 Loars.
Cut the figure in half would be more like it since half of those are truly no longer around. Lost due to acts of God, fire,flood,earthquakes,hurricanes,tornados,etc, and others at the hands of their owners by accidental descruction or simply thrown in the trash not knowning the value. Remember the PeeWee Lambert story of finding his Loar in a trash can! Strange things do happen.
2 were almost lost by a firepoker in the 80's. How many were lost to Katerina or Wilma? So of that 62 left you have to add the fact the F5 Journal does not list or have knowledged of a good number of those known about but unaccounted by the F5Journal. Since I helped in getting a good number of those listed I can recall several that were sold through Gruhn or Mandolin Bros in which no record of the serial number was made public. Builders like Randy Wood have worked on many but didn't bother to record the serial number at the time. Beeny Cain was the first guy to think about gathering up the known serial numbers in the 60's. I only got into doing the serial numbers on a serious level with Darryl about 1983. Darryl was the guy to go public with serial numbers. I would guess about 40 missed before the Jounal got started and still unaccounted for. Since then many have come forth that were missed but many remain hidden. I have photos of Loars but no serial number to apply to them.
There are owners who are not in the bluegrass world but others know about it. Then there are those guys who say they have one but they really have several. So down to 22 that might come up for sale in the decades ahead still in the hands of the original owner or family. Yeah you got a better chance at the Powerball. However actually owning a Loar are much better odds as there is one for sale now on the Cafe.

[kudzugypsy]

true, i would imagine there are at least two dozen that are in private collections with no intention of revealing the serial numbers...a good friend of mine says a certain well known lover of loars and long time collector has a valut full of 'em.

...but on the bright side, it seems like the last 1/2 dozen loars to surface have been *undocumented* - darryl explained that they mostly fall into known batches, so they are not technically *undocumented* - they are just undiscovered.

[mandoman15]

gah! why the secrecy? THe idea that some were lost to "others at the hands of their owners by accidental descruction or simply thrown in the trash not knowning the value" makes my heart sink.... http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif

[banjo1]

A friend of mine(now gone to be with the Lord) had a 23 Mandola that was cut down to the thickness of a mandolin ( both labels were signed by Lloyd Loar)This was always a hot topic in SW Missouri and NW Arkansas and by that I mean authentisity.

Do any of you Loar experts have any info on this Mandola/mandolin?(serial # unknown to me)

I have played the Mandoa/mandolin a few times and it did have a Loar look and did have that sound that we all like.
Just thought that I would pass this onfo on.
I have not seen the instrument or no of its whereabouts since Ernie passed away.

[f5loar]

there was the tale of the Luke Thompson of LA '24 H5 Fern mandola that he cut down to the size of the F5. Luke may have sold that one way back and you are speaking of the same one. Both labels were still intact.
It was serial number 76548 signed by Loar on 3/31/24.
However Luke did not cut down the peghead so the headstock is bigger than a normal F5 making it look a little strange upon first glance.

[banjo1]

A larger peghead...............I do remember that it did look a little large and it was a Fern. I guess that it could have been a 24 and not a 23.
Ernie never said where he got the mando though.
Thanks for the info.

[Charles Johnson]

The last two Loars I turned up were both previously undocumented in the Journal. Both sellers knew what they had but had no reason to make the information public. One had been passed down in the family since 1930, originally bought by the grandfather out of the newspaper. The other was taken in on pawn over 20 years ago. He finally decided to sell it when the prices started rising.

I bought a 1937 F7 from the son of the original owner last year.

I also know of at least 4 Ferns found in the last 3 or 4 years that were not listed in the Journal.

They are still out there.....

Best regards,
Charles Johnson
Mandolin World Headquarters, Inc.

[f5loar]

These are the ones known by others but not listed. Eventually they will turn up and the number documented and they more than likely will fill in a speculated missing number. These don't count in the ones not known where they are. '37 was a very rare year as was '35,36,38 and '39. You can count on your hands the number of F5s made during those years.

[Ken Waltham]

Yep, that F5 of your friend's was Luke's old H5.
He told me the story himself.
He owned it as an H5, and loaned to someone. That someone dropped it and broke it.
Apparantly, quite badly.
Luke then converted it to an F5. He sold it about 6 or 7 years ago, for a price that was very reasonable. It would never have bought the tuners...
I have a video he sent me of him gigging with it, and, it sounds like a Loar!
Ken