Refurbishing Rover RM75 worth it?

[Tomate Palta]

Hey folks!
A friend of mine lend me his old Rover RM75 from around 2008. After cleaning all the fat, dust and stuff off the top, reseting and re sanding the bridge and setting up all the rest, it turned out to be a pretty decent mando. He might be willing to sell it to me for about 200€. The problem is i know i'll have to buy a better ebony bridge, a new tail piece and i'll have to refret it (which i can do myself though, but what a pain...).
Do you guys think it's worth it or rather spend more money on something less annoying? There's a Kentucky KM 630 on ebay for about 450€, not in town though but seems to be ok, way more money though. The problem is here in Germany we don't have too many mandos around so it's hard to know which ones are good and which aren't, for instance no stores sell Rovers or Kentucky here so i have no idea. You only see Eastmans and occasionally The Loars.
Any thoughts? I'm actually pretty tempted on buying it, it definitely sounds brighter and it barks more than my old all solid (pressed top) Kay.
Thanks a million!

[Ron McMillan]

I think 200 Euros is too high. Maybe he'll take fifty off for you, since you have to spend so much to get it properly playable?

[Tomate Palta]

Thanks Rob for the reply! So you'd think, in the case i manage to get it for about 150€, should be worth it?

[Bob Visentin]

Is it a RM75 with the dark stain. Those are pretty good mandos for the money. I paid $300 USD about 6 yrs ago for mine but it had a nice tail piece and was like new.

[Tomate Palta]

Is it a RM75 with the dark stain. Those are pretty good mandos for the money. I paid $300 USD about 6 yrs ago for mine but it had a nice tail piece and was like new.

Hey Bob, not sure what you mean with the dark stain but i assume you're talking about the regular three colours sunburst (black to blonde) in contrast with the older "reddish" models? Here some pictures of the mando.

Thanks guys for the feedback!

[Ron McMillan]

You say it already sounds good, so if you can get it for around 150 Euros, and since you are able to set it up yourself, you should go for it, and enjoy it until you feel a need for something more expensive. That's something that happens to us all.

RM

[Jim]

I have an RM 75, 200 Euros is a bit high if it needs a refret. Mine was about $350 used in 2005, plays & sounds great!

[UsuallyPickin]

Save some more money and buy something you don't have to immediately work on. It's not a classic worthy of a great deal of attention it's a bottom line student grade instrument. R/

[Tomate Palta]

Hey everybody! Just quick update: got the mando for 100€ and sucsefully refreted myself amd swaped the bridge for an ebony german made one. So far, sounds sweet! Plays nice and all, i think the old frets were not properly hammere/glued cause now it really sounds above the 12th fret. I believe though that the bridge has to " open up" a bit in terms of vibrations but as said, so far so good!
Thank you everybody for all the advice! And for the ones willing to refret an instrument and not dairing, just do it, you will need hours and patience but it's not super hyper complicated as most of us think (i did work with instruments before but never on a refret, mostly historical keyboards).

[Steve Ostrander]

I think 100 euros was a good deal. Frets are not glued in though, just hammered in. So if you have one sticking up a bit you can carefully tap it in. Or carefully file it down on the end.