Antoniotsai?

[Rhombuss]

I came across this builder who seems to sell a lot of his instruments on Ebay, mainly guitars, violins and mandolins. The prices are ridiculously cheap, however there are a number of websites online that have been made to bash the builder on poor build quality. The Ebay references seem very good, so I was thinking these few websites might've been by the same person with some personal malice towards Antoniotsai.

Does anyone have any knowledge of this? I know if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

[Jim Broyles]

When I haven't been out and out ripped off, I leave decent feedback regardless of what I actually think of the product. I have bought two inlaid pickguards, an adjustable bridge and a casted (that's how he lists them) brass tailpiece. The casting was low quality, there was no hole for an endpin or strap button, the pickguards both warped and the inlay popped out of them and the bridge (ebony with a bone saddle) came apart. I left positive feedback for him. I am of the opinion that his stuff is either pretty but made with bad wood which warps, or just plain tackily gaudy. Unless you only want an oriental wall hanger, beware.

[OregonMike]

There have been some recent threads here on this builder that focused on the build quality you are talking about. The consensus if I remember correctly was that you get what you pay for and then just barely.

Mike
1916 A-0 Pumpkintop Paddlehead
1924 A-1 Blackface Snakehead
www.MusicMoose.org

[Mike Buesseler]

jbmando....man, this makes me wonder about a lot of eBay sellers with good feedback! Sounds like as long as you get something for your money, you give positive feedback?!? http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif

[MikeEdgerton]

Search is your friend. Here is a list of threads that contain the words antonio and tsai. Look at the threads that say Bruce Weiart as well. Honestly, don't buy them from the builder. Save a bundle and buy them from the other folks that made a mistake when they bought them. You'll save your self a bundle of cash that way and make some other eBayer's very happy that they could dump the junk.

Antonio and Tsai Search (http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=Search;CODE=02;SID=4665e4ac41e71 989;st=0)

[MikeEdgerton]

The consensus if I remember correctly was that you get what you pay for and then just barely.
I question if you get that but then again I've only seen two mind you.

[OregonMike]

The casting was low quality, there was no hole for an endpin or strap button, the pickguards both warped and the inlay popped out of them and the bridge (ebony with a bone saddle) came apart. I left positive feedback for him.
Wow, JB - If that's what it takes to get positive feedback what does it take to get negative feedback from you? Is your feedback only on the transaction and not the quality of the product you receive?

Mike
1916 A-0 Pumpkintop Paddlehead
1924 A-1 Blackface Snakehead
www.MusicMoose.org

[Jim Nollman]

I concur with the above. A friend bought a mandola on Ebay from this luthier. It had incredible tone for about a week. The absolutely gorgeous inlay of a tiger started popping out of the wood within two weeks. Then the good tone started to disappear. My friend returned it, with no questions asked, all the way back to China, and he got a ukulele with far less inlay, instead. This one has also warped, but not as much.

On the other hand, I have bought a bridge and a cast brass tailpiece from another Chinese inlay luthier, i believe his name was, Mr. Bruce Wei. after much hard work to sit the bridge tightly onto my instrument, i consider it an asset to the instrument's overall tone. I get lots of compliments on the subtle flower inlay. The tailpiece is a celtic knot motif, and it is also quite stunning to see. However, it's not perfect. The string hooks are slightly too big, and I have to use a needle-nose plier to get them to hold.

I'd buy another tailpiece and/or bridge from this seller.

[Jim Broyles]

Yes, as long as I got what I paid for and receive it reasonably fast, I do not leave negative feedback. To me the risk of retaliatory negative is great when you are the buyer, and most sellers will not leave feedback until it is left for them. I bought a "custom" amp cover for a popular amp and the guy was basically incognito for three weeks until I started a dispute with PayPal. I received notice of shipment (coincidentally?) after about 3 days of the dispute, still with zero communication referencing my dispute. When I got it I left positive, not neutral, feedback that the cover was good and the shipping was slow. He never left any for me. If I am disappointed with the product or something about it, the first thing I do is go back to the description and make sure I didn't overlook something. I did have to email a few sellers and complain a little, but they have always rebated a little money or otherwise satisfied me. I have always gotten paid and never been ripped off on eBay.

[Jim Broyles]

Oregon, I knew I was getting cheap stuff. I wasn't expecting anything that great. He did take care of the first pickguard, and besides that, you leave the feedback when you first get the stuff before anything happens to it. That was about three years ago when I was a real mando newbie, so I didn't know enough to look for the correct holes on a tailpiece, and I haven't bought and wouldn't buy anything from him again. I usually only buy on eBay when I know what I'm getting, so the quality of the product is not reflected in the feedback. I simply try to be thorough in reading the listing, and ask questions if I have any.

[Rhombuss]

Yeah, I figured as much. For computer parts and electronics, I wouldn't mind getting something that was of lower quality because you know exactly what you're going to use it for. For an instrument, however, I personally wouldn't sacrifice quality even if it was ridiculously cheap. It'll just end up being an expensive doorstop.

[OregonMike]

Oregon, I knew I was getting cheap stuff. I wasn't expecting anything that great. He did take care of the first pickguard, and besides that, you leave the feedback when you first get the stuff before anything happens to it. That was about three years ago when I was a real mando newbie, so I didn't know enough to look for the correct holes on a tailpiece, and I haven't bought and wouldn't buy anything from him again. I usually only buy on eBay when I know what I'm getting, so the quality of the product is not reflected in the feedback. I simply try to be thorough in reading the listing, and ask questions if I have any.
That makes sense JB - it sounds like you are trying to be careful with your feedback and give sellers the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes it does seem like there is some "feedback inflation" out there where everyone is an A+++.

Cheers,

Mike
1916 A-0 Pumpkintop Paddlehead
1924 A-1 Blackface Snakehead
www.MusicMoose.org

[cooper4205]

Save a bundle and buy them from the other folks that made a mistake when they bought them. You'll save your self a bundle of cash that way and make some other eBayer's very happy that they could dump the junk.

Antonio and Tsai Search (http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=Search;CODE=02;SID=4665e4ac41e71 989;st=0)
Have you seen the guys that try and pass these things off as works of art? I've seen more than a few of these sold as "handmade" with "beautiful" inlays for around a $1,000. I guess some people think they are being slick, and hoping someone will see the word "handmade" and think they are getting a deal.

A guy has one at a jam I go to, he's a guitar player but bought it to have a mandolin to fool around with. The first time I went with my Flatiron A5, he pulled it out #and said "Now look at this thing, it's handmade and check this inlay out!" then handed it to me to look at. It was an akward situation because there wasn't anything positive to say. I just handed it back and said "That's some inlay" and left it at that.

If the thing weighed a pound, it weighed 15 and it sounded very thin, and quiet. #What posses people to buy these in the first place? Inlay work that guady should be illegal

[Potosimando]

A couple of years ago, out of curiosity, I purchased (on ebay from Antoniotsai) two "cast" tailpieces, two bridges, a heavily-inlaid fretboard, two pickguards, and some other components that don't come to mind right now. #All of it was worthless junk...a joke really. I cannot imagine that his mandolins are any good whatsoever.

The fretboard was nice looking, but the slots were unbelievably poorly spaced and not even parallel with one another. #Over the months the fretboard twisted and changed from dark black, to dark grey, to brown (apparently as the shoe polish or whatever sublimated away). A "graying" pickguard warped, and warped, and warped, until it finally broke in two. The "cast" tailpieces actually are thick bent/formed sheet metal (one was much thinner than the other).

"Tony" was a very nice guy throughout our email correspondence, even when I explained to him what was wrong with each of his components--I attempted to explain the concept of quality control to him, and how it might relate to future sales. #

I should have left negative feedback I suppose, but decided at the time simply to not leave any feedback--my take then was that he was simply clueless on what he was selling, and did not believe what I was telling him.

[MikeEdgerton]

Have you seen the guys that try and pass these things off as works of art?

It must be art, they bought it didn't they? http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[GTG]

I bought a mando from him 3 years ago- my first one. It arrived quickly, was well-packed, and looked and sounded great out of the box. I can also add that it was definitely looked handmade, having enough quirks to be a unique instrument (even had side sound-ports, still had some wood shavings inside it, etc.). As art, the instrument actually looked really good, and sounded decent too. But then the problems started (after I had left positive feedback!). The neck started warping and buzzing, the bridge (the flimsiest thing I've ever seen under that name) started distorting, and then I noticed that the frets weren't parallel (this was my fault - I should have noticed immediately). Eventually the top started sinking, after a couple of years of remaining mostly unplayed. Well, it taught me a lesson, and wasn't all that expensive, so didn't represent a huge loss. Still, overall it's a real bummer of an instrument.

[mrbook]

Like probably many others, I left my feedback before the real problems developed. He does give very good service.

[Paul Hostetter]

I have nursed several dozen of the Vietnamese instruments to playability for a number of folks out my way. There are three sellers on eBay: Bruce Wei, Antonio Deathwarmedover Tsai, and Sam. They are not luthiers, no matter what they try to tell you. They are middlemen, period. The shops that make these are in Ho Chi Minh City, which has a long history of lutherie. It's like Paracho: someone does the wood gathering and milling, someone else makes the boards, someone makes cases, some else makes bodies, someone else cuts the pearl sheet, someone else does the inlay, someone else does the finishing. There are middlemen there too, feeding the eBay retailers, which is why all the stuff they have made looks alike.

Almost all the instruments I've dealt with were mandolins of some type. One guitar. A couple of banjo hybrid things. The supplies they sell are indeed dreadful: pearl supplies, tailpieces, horrible. The instruments are what they are, and most of the people dumping on them operate on hearsay. I've handled a lot of them personally. They're not that bad, especially for the money. Once you've seen them up close and realize the sketchiness, you look at the sale photos and realize they're very accurate. Trouble is, most people don't see the grubby details in the photos, they just see a lot of fru-fru. I'm more interested in the sound of some of these things.

The sellers are quite responsive and take care of things very well. I know someone who ordered a mandolin and it was accidentally shipped to the wrong person. I think Bruce Wei spent several times more than the sale price of the instrument making that right. Their packing is uniformly excellent.

A couple of the mandolin designs really work well. Basically I think they're all OK and fill a niche. The things I've dealt with have held up quite well. I bought a simple wide flat mandolin with side soundholes some years ago and I love it. It doesn't sound anything like any other mandolin I own, and it has this nice wide fingerboard for my fat fingers, and revealed a sprightly sound once I got rid of the awful bone bridge.

http://www.lutherie.net/Mandolin109.jpg

My experience is that most people who bought one off eBay and then resell it there (or somewhere) charge several times what they go for new. The supply lately from all three of these sellers has been slender.

It takes at least a new bridge and an hour or two to make a silk purse out of these things, but all the ones I've done, with one exception, have held up very well. One had a badly engineered (sagging somewhat) top, but it wasn't hard to deal with.

There are a couple of Aussies selling Vietnamese instruments and posing as makers producing them in Australia. This is pathetic, because they're charging Aussie prices which are 5-10 over the eBay prices for the same things the Big Three on Taiwan get.

Caveat emptor. If you buy it, you have not been ripped off.

[jim_n_virginia]

About eBay feedback....

If you are a frequent buyer or seller on eBay you HAVE to be very concerned about your feedback rating. If you feedback have a LOT of bad feedback no one wants to buy or sell to you.

Consequently when you recieve less than favorable service you are hesitant to leave bad feedback because you will get retalitory negative feedback.

Sometimes it better to just not post anything at all and go about your business. If a seller is a complete ripoff then there will be bad feedback from people who do not care if they get the retalitory negative feedback like from someone who is just a one time or occasional user.

So feedback IS useful but you have to be able to read between the lines and that just comes with experience with using eBay.

For instance someone could have excellent feedback but on closer examination they sold 500 individual auctions all under a dollar and all of a sudden now they have a $5K mandolin for sale. All the other auctions could have just been feedback building for the big payoff.

Regarding the eBay sellers mentioned I have only bought from Antonio Sai a few times and never an instrument only precut inlay and it all came in a prompt manner and packaged very well but as everyone said a little on the cheap side but that is not enough to warrant bad feedback. I got exactly what I ordered and in a timely manner so I left good feedback and in return I got good feedback in return.

[MikeEdgerton]

More on feedback. If you really want to know what you're dealing with don't just look at the numbers, look at how people respond to negative feedback. It can be all telling. I have no problem with a seller that has a good number of sales and a few (one or two maybe three) negatives. It happens. People get buyer's remorse. It's how you answer them that will determine if people will overlook them. I also look at the feedback left for others. I had a guy bid on one of my auctions a few years back. 100% positive feedback, may 30 or so transactions. He'd left 12 negatives and had miraculously never been neg'd back. I really had no interest going forward on that persons bid so I didn't. I also have a well developed blocked bidder list. Come to think of it this is why I don't do much on eBay anymore.

[Jim MacDaniel]

This mandola (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310015703054&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123) offered by Tsai is by far one of his least gaudi offerings I've seen, and would actually be a nice looking instrument had the builder not gone soundhole crazy on the soundboard... http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif

[allenhopkins]

Paul H and I engaged in a lengthy and somewhat acerbic dialog on this board, about the Vietnamese/Taiwanese eBay instruments. #I just wondered how any instrument with the amount of handwork these embody, could be sold so inexpensively and yet yield a profit for everyone in the "supply chain." #I defer completely to Paul's greater expertise and experience in this area; I've only had direct contact with two of the instruments, a mandolin and a mandola, that have reached Rochester. #One was in the process of being repaired/adjusted, and the luthier who was working on it, Bernie Lehmann, (http://www.lehmannstrings.com/) was not complimentary of its construction. #It was elaborately and gaudily inlaid, front, back and headstock, but seemed very heavy and sounded thin.

I have been very interested in Paul's explanation of the Vietnamese "cottage industry" that produces the instruments, which are then sold to Taiwanese entrepreneurs, who resell them -- mostly through eBay, I guess. What wisdom I retained from the earlier discussion and this one, is that [a] you can obtain solid-wood instruments at very low prices by buying these Vietnamese products, [b] there have been widespread reports of quality issues, which seem to include less-than-fully-seasoned wood, very thin inlays that subsequently fall out, and mediocre quality metal parts, [c] it would behoove a purchaser to have any instrument immediately evaluated by a competent repair person, so that the instrument can be returned/exchanged if there are problems, and [d] almost everyone reports that the Taiwanese sellers are responsive to complaints and prompt at filling orders, which probably accounts for their overwhelmingly positive feedback.

[Gutbucket]

There's also a guy that attends the jams I go to that has an Antoniotsai. Maybe two. He displays them bass akwards on a stand so the audience can see the bad (to me) inlay. Nobody has the heart to tell him that these mandolins aren't the greatest thing on the planet, but he's happy with them. What the heck, he still sports a feathered Urban Cowboy hat, and has velvet Elvis and bullfighter paintings in his trailer. Ya gotta smile. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Daniel Wheeler]

Off subject but I played a guitar with position markers in every fret that weren't even aligned. Then was given it out of the audience to fill in on a song I'd never played while the guy fixed the sound. Back on subject. Ice only seen one of those tsai things and it made my eyes hurt.

Only half joking

[arbarnhart]

This should be merged with that other thread - "An A to remember" http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[Paul Kotapish]

I've played a half-dozen of these, and while they are definitely crude, they sound pretty amazing for the price. I thought they would make perfect camping or busking instruments, and they might be good for getting a certain kind of sound that might be useful for recording--when you want a sound more like "Maggie May" than "Rawhide." I think they might be kind of good for that Planxty sound, too.

Jody Stecher has a couple and has mentioned on more than one occasion that he really likes them, and Kevin Carr has had several that he likes, too.