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527
Aug-06-2008, 10:08am
I was watching this one with interest:

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270260410528

Says it's a 1936 F-4. I asked the seller for his phone number twice to ask him more questions but never got it. I was a little nervous about the zero feedback so I didn't bid.

The end price of $3180 sounds pretty good but who knows how it went?

allenhopkins
Aug-06-2008, 10:57am
Seller seemed pretty honest about the instrument, though not totally knowledgeable. Late '30's 4's would have to be pretty rare. Still, obviously needed a lot of fixing and clean-up, after which it might be worth $2K above the high bid. So not a huge bargain, but a decent purchase.

In my limited eBay experience, the really scammy-sounding auctions don't show as many warts and issues as this one did. They talk about "no defects, wonderful condition, don't miss this one-in-a-million opportunity!!!" This one was a bit of an ugly duckling, and I doubt a scammer would present it quite that way. Only thing that worried me was the single picture that showed few details. That, and the nagging feeling I'd seen it somewhere before, but that may just be from looking at too many mandolins on eBay!

Jim Broyles
Aug-11-2008, 7:46am
Two big red flags to me - zero feedback and the mention of pictures (plural) and only one picture. I'd bet scam.

The whole mandolin shows signs of age and signs of wear due to many hours of joyful playing. It has surface scratches, scuffs and pits. The pick guard was badly fixed by someone very amateurish which placed a mound of ugly glue to secure the guard to the body/neck of the mandolin (see pics.) There is also a repaired crack at the head where the large loop is, one of the pictures below shows it. The bottom pointy corner is missing the insert at the tip and also about 1 inch of the lining (see pics.).

markishandsome
Aug-11-2008, 9:14am
In my limited eBay experience, the really scammy-sounding auctions don't show as many warts and issues as this one did. They talk about "no defects, wonderful condition, don't miss this one-in-a-million opportunity!!!"

In my also limited experience, I've seen auctions where the scammer lifted their description verbatim (along with the photos) from a previous ebay listing or one from elderly/gruhn/etc. It does seem strange that the scammer would choose to rip off an issue-ridden listing, but there's a lot of things about these scams that doen't make a lot of sense. I agree with jbmando that the single blurry satellite photo is a big red flag. Lousy marketing at best, lousy scam at worst.

Any Gibson experts care to comment on the (lack of) fingerboard extension?

Jim Broyles
Aug-11-2008, 9:45am
Any Gibson experts care to comment on the (lack of) fingerboard extension?
I'm not a Gibson expert, but a picture of a '36 F4 in the Archives (http://www.mandolinarchive.com/perl/show_mando.pl?2790) shows an identical fretboard to this one.

527
Aug-11-2008, 1:34pm
The seller sent more small photos, but never gave any more details or the contact info. I was worried enough not to bid, and I think that's what kept the price fairly low.