75 mandolins for sale

[NoNickel]

Think there's a rough diamond hiding in there somewhere?

<a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/LOT-OF-75-MANDOLINS-Washburns-Larsons-Bohmann-MORE_W0QQitemZ180111563996QQihZ008QQcategory
Z359QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem" target="_blank">http://cgi.ebay.com/LOT-OF-....iewItem</a>

[Jim Garber]

It looks like it but you would

1) have to repair it
2) have a dumptruck load of other mandolins to deal with.

Jim

[jk245]

&gt;&gt;jim
1) have to repair it
2) have a dumptruck load of other mandolins to deal with.


This great for a flea market. Just pick off the cream an make your profit on the rest of the lot. I think this could go for about $100/item.

[NoNickel]

I'm figuring that since:

1) this fellow is a dealer, he would know if something was worth anything; and
2) there aren't any A or F styles apparent, only taterbugs, that this inventory is already picked clean.

I bet that a dumptruck would be useful in this situation:D

[MikeEdgerton]

Lot's of campfire mandolins there... literally

[atetone]

I have always been a believer in the theory that is no such thing as too many mandolins.
I now see that quite possibly my thought process was flawed.
The last thing in the world that I need is a series of crates containing THOSE 75 mandolins.
I have to go now,,, I have to re-think that whole "purpose of life" thing.

[NoNickel]

Its up to about $10 per mando, if you count the shipping.

[Hans]

That's probably what they are worth.

[jk245]

That's probably what they are worth.
As a playable instrument they have dubious value.
Assume a few can be salvaged.

Here in New York City the decorative market is huge and prices in street fairs can bring decent prices on "fixed up" for "looking" condition.

As of April 26th they are up to $10.34 each including shipping. Surely in street fairs they are worth $25 each.

[MandoChop]

They would make great canoe paddles.

[mandroid]

To the tune of "99 bottles of beer on the wall" , it could be theatrical at least .
take one down and pass it around 74 man do'h lins on the wall .. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Bill Snyder]

I have seen the sellers name Dan'l Terry on the Mandolin Cafe before. I am only about 60 miles from Austin. It would be interesting to take a trip down there and take a look at them. Who knows the hardware might be worth the purchase price.

[Jim Garber]

The Washburn is interesting and is from the 1890s, a style 80. The Bohmann has early Handels on it.

I think Dan'l sounds pretty accurate on what he has here, at leats what I can tell from the pics. There may be a few jewels among the dross.

Jim

[MikeEdgerton]

Who knows the hardware might be worth the purchase price.


I was thinking the same but the sheer amount of firewood included would make it crazy. I don't how I'd explain this to my wife. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[jim_n_virginia]

many other uses fellas, you could make one heck of a mobile with those mandolins or maybe a huge art deco sculpture.

Or what about making lamps out of them?

The possibilities are endless! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

[blacksmith]

Mandolins by the cord !! (chord?)

[jasona]

Its what I've always imagined mandolin purgatory to look like, only more dust. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Jim Garber]

Who knows the hardware might be worth the purchase price.
Let's see... around now they are about $14 each inclusing shipping.

The Handels on the Bohmann are nice but the buttons are different AFAIK that the later Handels that appear on the Gibsons and the tuners themselves will only fit on the Bohmann.

I am sure there are a few other things that are worth something, but subtract the storage or dumpster rental and the cost of the divorce lawyer... http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Jim

[Bill Snyder]

Only about 4 days left and up to $1,025 plus shipping (the seller will allow pick up in Austin to avoid shipping).
I contacted the seller and while the instruments are not in a music store per se he has indicated a willingness to allow someone to come and see the instruments if you are close enough to Austin.

[Dan'l Terry]

for those still following this, this is Dan'l. Yes there's some junk. But there are also some real jewels (4 very early Washburns - made by the Larsons - Edwin Cubley, the founder was their brother in law! - several of which are featured in the new book coming out on Washburn mandolins), two Bohmann's, one very likely Vinaccia school classical, a few Bauers, an SS.Stewart, a flatback Weymann mandolute, and several other treasures.

They are not all beaters, more than a few are playable now, but almost all have some minor or major issues. Let's face it, they're a century old.

I'm selling because the market for bowlbacks sucks. I could probably make far more by just stripping off all the Brazilian rosewood and the abalone, the Handel tuners and 5 lobe trapezes and selling those parts and throwing the rest away. But i can't do it. These are history. They all have stories.

I tried for years to restore these and resell them at a small profit. Rarely happened, since the amount of time I'd invest more often than not wasn't worth the hit or miss crapshoot prices on Ebay. With my new guitar line coming out, I simply don't have the time nor energy nor money to bring them up to the standard I'd like, not when sometimes I'd not even reach the price I paid for them in the first place as treasures needing a bit of TLC.

The mandolins on that wall cost well over $10,000 in the condition you see them. I do hate to sell some of them because some are truly worth over $1000. At least a dozen by my reckoning maybe even two dozen, based on past sales of the same or similar models by the same makers.

Yes. Anyone who wishes may come by and see for yourself. Anyone who wishes to know if I'm good for my word, can check my ebay seller feedback record.

As long as I'm ranting, I may just as well get in an opinion of the absurd preoccupation most contemporary players have with F-style mandos. 1. they are factory instruments, not hand made. 2. Just because Bill Monroe played one well and became an iconic legend doesn't diminish the beauty, the sonic richness, or the functionality of a Neapolitan style classical mandolin. 3. Buying into a myth. (explain below)

And believe me, all the talk about chop, and tone, and superiority of the f-style design is 95% rationalization. It's perceived value is because a legendary star made it iconic. My phd work was studying the real underlying psychological motivations for valuation of treasures, and it's peer impressions that shape the justification more than any other factor. All the rest is self-delusion. There is NO inherently superiority of one design style over another. Just differences in harmonics and volumes, which are different from instrument to instrument anyway because of the differences in the wood, most of which in blind tests no one but a master can even hear.

Chop is due not to the instrument itself but a player's technique. It's ok to be deluded. We all are, but I've taken apart and rebuilt f4s and bowlbacks and flatbacks and cylinder backs enough to know a little bit about this stuff. It's personal preferences shaped by attitudes of peers and legendary associations that create the perception of value.

It's a travesty that so many otherwise intelligent and talented players turn their noses up at any mandolin that has a bowl shaped back. Those that we're made by master luthiers far better than the piecemeal craftmen at the Gibson factory in the 1920s. Frankly I've seen some of those instruments with as shoddy original workmanship as the harp guitars of Knutsen. There's a few gems but gimme a break. $50 grand is a bit ridiculous for any production model instrument, even if Bill Monroe spit into it and it's slathered with his DNA.

His has value because of it's place in history and any Moxie that he embued on it. The rest of 'em, that perceived value is largely due to association (and some savvy marketing from a few unnamed sellers that profit mightily from perpetuating the myth). Much of the magic is just myth and hustle. Not truth. Ok. I had my say.

Hate me if you wish. If you're offended it's only because truth hurts and I hit your "I've been discovered to have been duped" button.

I love these instruments. All of em. They are treasures from master luthiers, who in some cases may never be equalled. Some of their instruments (some of these) sound heavenly and play like a dream. And were they built today in the same materials of Red Spruce (rare), Brazilian Rosewood (rarer still), abalone (endangered in many parts of the world) would cost thousands of dollars in materials and labor alone to reproduce to the same high standards.

It tears me up to read people joking about these as if they are junk. Because they're not. Just too many of us don't see history or craftsmanship or mastery as important anymore since we live in an age of technological wonders and the illusion of perfect workmanship created by lasers, and robotic machines that create products designed to last at most a few years after they hit the store shelves.

These were built by human hands one piece at a time before the first airplane flew, or the first production car hit the dirt streets, before women could vote, or the radio, television or films were made. And they still function and sound as good if not better than they did when they were wrought out of raw well seasoned quality woods over a century ago.

Anyone who looks down their noses at them because some have suffered a bit of damage (or bought into the marketing hype that diminished them in players minds) in the ensuing decades of being lovingly played until the Fern Snobs initially conceived by Gibson's marketing mavens who spawned them way back before most of you were born, started dissing anything that didn't have a scroll and the right pattern of inlays, has bought into a myth.

As I used to tell my student in advanced advertising classes, anything that's said a thousand times becomes truth (if only in the mind, which is where truth can only exist). But that truth doesn't diminish other truths. For years I've heard people put down Neapolitan style mandolins as somehow inferior and it's all just the old 1930s Marketing rumor repeated ad-nauseatum until now perception has become a sad reality.

But it doesn't erase the truth that among the few badly damaged instruments on the wall are true historic masterpieces, worthy of saving, or playing by a master, or preserved for history in a museum. That is also a truth.

Sorry if I offended anyone. But someone had to say it.

Ouch!!
More than a few valid points though..
DD

[Jerry Byers]

Okay, this must be some sort of reverse psychology - put others down and proclaim that bowlbacks are king. Sorry sir, I'll have to disagree with your logic. I believe every style of mandolin plays a role. Is the F5 superior - no. Is the F5 a bunch of hype - no. Do all mandolins sound the same - no. Do modern mandolins cost too much - been covered many times in other threads.

So, are you just trying to market your auction because you yourself were duped into buying all of these bowlbacks? Sounds to me that you thought you could buy a bunch of bowlbacks and make a quick buck - and the market decided otherwise.

Good luck with your auction. I'm sure there are some gems in the bunch.

[Bill Snyder]

Dan'l
There are several aficionados of the bowl backs at the Mandolin Cafe. Some of the folks that have posted on this thread are quite literally historians (even if only amateur) of the instruments.

[NoNickel]

I for one, as the starter of this thread and one of the jokers mentioned, believes that Mr. Terry has some valid points. #I do not agree with everything he has said, but he certainly has a right to his opinion. #Also, I respect his position enough to apologize for any disrespect that I threw his way. #Dan'l thanks for your contribution. And good luck with the auction.

[Jim Garber]

Many of us bowlheads do know Dan'l, naturally. And I am sure that his lot of 75 will be of value to the final winner.

It is interesting that you note that Gibson's advertising campaign in the teens must have had some sort of effect on the popularity of the bowlback in the US. But it was at least a two-pronged affair: not only did they downgrade the image of the bowlback in their literature -- I think they might have even coined the term "taterbug" -- but they promoted the concept of mandolin groups and enticed these groups and teachers to promote the Gibson as the superior instrument.

As for Dan'l's contentions about bowlbacks vs. Gibsons: the bast majority of the bowlbacks that are out there and a large part of his collection, I would wager, are also factory instruments. Lyon & Healy, at its height, boasted of producing over 100,000 instruments a day. This was no small shop and while there are features on the upper ened instruments that are quite nice and possibly made by an atelier within the larger factory, this was not necessarily old world style craftsmanship from a small shop.

As others have noted, there is no reason to downplay the Gibson style of instrument so prominent esp here in the US vs. the bowlback. Each has its place. Take a look at my instrument closet. I could have a sale like Dan'l's one day.

As to prices: I have noticed a steady increase in the much-maligned bowlback even here in the US, primarily due to market forces mostly eBay. And there is a definite difference in prices for the high end models and the prominent European makers. In Europe and Japan, of course, there is even greater interest in these.

Jim

[MikeEdgerton]

boasted of producing over 100,000 instruments a day

At that rate the market would have been flooded quickly. It was a year if I recall.

[Jim Garber]

Mike:
You are right!! In fact I kept thinking per year and still typed per day. It is early. In any case, they did flood the market ... when you look around there are quite a few L&H products still around.

Jim

[MikeEdgerton]

If they'd made a hundred thousand a day for years there'd be a heck of a lot more of them. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[jk245]

Believe it or not as of the present time (5 hours b4 the end of the auction)
the bid is $2100 which = $32.26 including shipping.

[Martin Jonas]

Hmmm. $4300 final sales price. One can argue about bowlbacks being undervalued, but I would say that this is an excellent price considering that there are a lot of completely anonymous instruments in there, and many with unknown and probably (at least for a fair proportion) severe structural faults. If I were Dan'l, I would be very pleased indeed with that result.

Martin

[MandoChop]

Mr. Terry, please accept my humble apology to you or anyone else who was offended by my commentary. #I realize now, after the fact, my half-hearted attempt at humor could be considered inconsiderate. #You made valid points. #Good luck. #Rich.

[delsbrother]

Personally, I'd rather have the Knutsen.