Gumby Alert!

[MikeEdgerton]

NFI. For your viewing pleasure.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/80s-Gibson-M...MAAOSw7XBY8Wll

[Lane Pryce]

There is an A12 on Reverb too. Lp

[JeffD]

If the lump scroll mandolin sounded exceptional, I could put up with the inflamed bubo of a scroll.

But I have not heard that they sounded exceptional, or even all that good. I have never played one, but an acquaintance has one that she loves, and a lump scroll mandolin was on the cover of a mandolin tune book many years ago.

[Mandoplumb]

For $1200 a fellow could buy a real mandolin, good looking case though.

[Spruce]

....has anyone ever heard of one of these selling?
...and, for how much?

...and, what year is this?
The serial # is 396991, and I couldn't pull up a year on the Gibson decoder....

[addamr]

There was one of these for sale a few months ago on Craigs list, over your way Layne. I'm thinking it was around 800.00 .

That strap button in the heel is, well I don't know what. But why??

Adam

[Mike Stewart]

Every time I see one these things, despite having seen them on a regular basis over the years, I can't help but have my first thought be, "what the hell was Gibson thinking?" And then to have the gall to ask a non-trivial amount of money for it? I would have assumed that they all ended up in the landfill next to the Atari E. T game cartridges, but the fact that they show up used means someone bought them. Which then leads me to ask what the buyer was thinking.

[LadysSolo]

He does say "make an offer."

[Spruce]

Every time I see one these things, despite having seen them on a regular basis over the years, I can't help but have my first thought be, "what the hell was Gibson thinking?"

Henry bought Gibson in '85....
Are these pre or post changeover??

[jefflester]

Pre, these are from the 70s.

[Matt Vuksinich]

I bought one new in 1971; I'd put down a deposit at a local store for an A-40, only to learn that those were discontinued and this was the only available option of similar price. It was a vast improvement over my Japanese bowlback, though (intonation up the neck, playability, even sound). As my ear and playing improved, I learned how lacking the sound really was--but to this day (it's been on indefinite loan to a high school music dept for the last 10 yrs), I'm still impressed with what a wonderful feel the neck had/has. I suppose with a pickup, it COULD be useful.

[Sakamichi]

As someone who has just begun to learn how to play, I'm missing the point here. What's so bad about this particular Gibson?

[Mandoplumb]

As someone who has just begun to learn how to play, I'm missing the point here. What's so bad about this particular Gibson?

Other than no volume, thin sorry sound,and just plain ugly ther is nothing wrong with them. To be fair to Gibson, their A styles(40 and50) weren't selling because everyone wanted a scroll and I guess they thought this was a lower priced reasonable facsimile.

[Sakamichi]

Thanks for the insight. I would assume if it says Gibson on the headstock, it would be a good instrument by default. The bulbous protrusion is rather ugly now that I look at it.

[Fretbear]

Good ol' Lumpy......

[sunburst]

I would assume if it says Gibson on the headstock, it would be a good instrument by default.

You're not alone, and that sentence explains why these were made and why they sold (and many other things...).

[MikeEdgerton]

This could be described as an F-5 shaped object.

[JeffD]

Sakamichi, aesthetics aside if it is low volume, thin and brassy sounding that would be a problem for me.

The looks are only important to mandolin aficionados. In the general public, you would be lucky someone knew it was a mandolin.

If you found one that sounded great, or could be made to sound great, you might could get it at a reasonable price because of the unpopularity of the looks.

Then get real good at it. Just immensely good. If you can play the potatoes out of it, nobody will notice that it doesn't conform to the aesthetic standards of our small elite mandolin community.

I think, in my experience, I am poisoned by the standard F5 looks I have become used to. I firmly believe that if the lump scroll sounded great, and if Bill Monroe played one, it would have become the norm, and today we would all be worshiping the lump, and deriding the open scroll.

And, as I have related elsewhere, when I first saw an F style body I was kind of horrified by all those curly projections. My tastes have significantly changed since then.

[multidon]

Can anyone explain to me WHY these sound bad? The lump scroll shouldn't affect sound one way or the other. Has anyone played one that sounded good? Has anybody taken one that sounded not so good and made it sound good, say with string choice, different bridge, nut, tailpiece, etc.?

[sunburst]

These were generally poorly executed, over-built mandolins and thus the sound is generally deemed not good. Sound is subjective, of course, so surely there are those who think they do sound good, or have one that they think sounds good.
Some have been re-worked to sound better through re-graduating the plates, and some have had the lump carved into a scroll so that they look better to many people.
I haven't seen him for a long time, but I know a guy who has a re-worked one, done many years ago by C.E. Ward, IIRC. It is a decent, usable mandolin, but it was done in the days when decent, usable mandolins were nearly impossible to come by. There are so many decent, usable mandolins available now for prices so low that I can't think of any compelling reason to rework a lumpy mandolin to try to improve it now (but then, a head stock that says "Gibson" is not an important consideration to me).

[EdHanrahan]

If I may augment the thought:

These were generally poorly executed, over-built mandolins ...

... from the era when Gibson was run by accountants whose objective was to minimize warranty claims. Thinking along the lines of: "If it looks like a mandolin and doesn't fall apart too fast, then it must be a good mandolin. Music? What's that?" Such logic spawned a cottage industry of quality mandolin builders, as well as the Flatiron company that, eventually, Gibson wisely purchased.

[Spruce]

I would assume if it says Gibson on the headstock, it would be a good instrument by default.

[your_diamond]

Can anyone explain to me WHY these sound bad?

I would guess (correct me if I'm wrong) that the tops (on these Lump Scrolls) are pressed and not carved.
I owned a 1924 Gibson L-4, with a carved top that sounded wonderful.
Also owned a mid-1950's L-48, with a pressed top that sounded DEAD.
There are companies that make pressed top acoustic instruments that sound quite good, but Gibson is not one of them.
Gibson does make electric pressed top instruments that sound good... just not pressed top acoustic instruments that sound good.

ALSO, this Gibson A-12 was made during the tail end of the dreaded NORLIN era (late 1969 - 1986). A time when the company was SOLD because it was plagued with corporate mismanagement and decreasing product quality. Things were so bad at Gibson, they were within three months of going out of business before it was bought by Henry E. Juszkiewicz, David H. Berryman, and Gary A. Zebrowski in January 1986. I don't remember what the company sold for, but it wasn't much. ONE MONTH (yes just 30 days) after Gibson was sold, it became profitable again. Now that's good management. The first thing management did was to discontinue all the crappy models (like this A-12) and concentrate on their iconic models (F-5's, Les Pauls, etc.).

[Spruce]

I don't remember what the company sold for, but it wasn't much.

$5 million...

Now that's good management.

That, my friends, has to be a first...

[Mike Stewart]

Can anyone explain to me WHY these sound bad?

Think as to why Gibson put a lump on there instead of a scroll: build cost. So Gibson saved money on the scroll, and which allowed them to have thin, meticulously hand-carved tops and a varnish finish, right? No, of course not. They cheaped out on the scroll, just like they cheaped out on the rest of the instrument. It was built to a price (as evidenced by the lump), not to a sonic standard.