Amazon Selling Mandolins for $12.71

[RBMB]

See https://www.amazon.com/Sunbeam-63019...nbeam+mandolin

Obviously a better deal than offered by Walmart https://www.walmart.com/ip/Jaccard-S...dolin/12220823

I wonder if many people have come to the Cafe to purchase a mandoline on the classifieds

[Roger Moss]

See https://www.amazon.com/Sunbeam-63019...nbeam+mandolin

Obviously a better deal than offered by Walmart https://www.walmart.com/ip/Jaccard-S...dolin/12220823

I wonder if many people have come to the Cafe to purchase a mandoline on the classifieds

Careful. You can really mess up your Blue Chip on one of those...

[Folkmusician.com]

And your hand! I recently succumbed to buying mandolin. Of course the thing that you feed the veggies in with is pretty much useless, so you do it with your hand.

[Jess L.]

... Obviously a better deal than offered by Walmart https://www.walmart.com/ip/Jaccard-S...dolin/12220823 ...

That's one of the 3rd-party resellers that, for some inexplicable reason, Walmart allows to sell things at the Walmart website. The 3rd-party sellers are almost always high priced.

Walmart has zillions of its own items as well, but those will always specifically say something to the effect of "shipped from and sold by Walmart".

I realize that Walmart shopping is a 'controversial' topic and I won't get into that, but if one did wish to see what Walmart itself is offering online, the way to weed out most of the 3rd-party sellers is, after you've already searched and got a list of items, then scroll down on the left side of the Walmart page to where it says "Retailer", and click to put a checkbox only in the box for Walmart. That will eliminate the majority of the 3rd-party sellers from showing up in your search results for *that* particular item (some will slip through anyway, always read the fine print for *each* item). Anytime you change the search terms, you have to re-select the "Retailer" option you want.

Ok so looking at their mandolins in the "Musical Instruments" category, hmm let's start with some cheapies... I see they currently have a $50 "solid spruce top Rover" (NOT Rogue) mandolin, sunburst, "only 2 left" at the time of this writing, "sold & shipped by Walmart"... now ya know darn well at that price the instrument couldn't possibly be properly "shop inspected and set up" despite what it says on the webpage... Is this the same make/model as the black one that was in a recent thread about Amazon, or was that a different brand? I can't remember.

Moving up the scale, a pretty little amber-colored f-hole Kentucky KM-252 for $344 with free shipping. Hmm.

Prefer oval hole instead? Yep Walmart has at least two of those, both currently "sold & shipped by Walmart" (so you're not dealing with some potentially fly-by-night 3rd-party seller who might make returns difficult), there's an oval hole amber Kentucky KM-272, $449 with free shipping, as well as a sunburst oval Kentucky 270 for $344...

Hmm now I wonder why the sunburst costs $100 less than the amber, for what looks to me like otherwise the same model?

Of course I'd be willing to bet that you get zero, zilch, nada setup when buying mandolins from Walmart. I'd be fairly certain they just pull a box out of a warehouse somewhere and stick it in a FedEx box (they do pack things quite well, from what I've seen, lots and lots of wadded up brown paper and/or those puffy air-filled bag things, although I haven't bought any musical instruments from Walmart) and send it on its way to the customer's door. *Some*, but not all, of the stuff they sell, you can opt to pick it up at the nearest Walmart customer service counter instead of having it shipped to your home... I suppose that could can be handy if you're not home during the day and don't want stuff stolen off your porch.

IMO, FWIW, since the prices appear to be the same as some of the MandolinCafe sponsors, if I was going to buy one of those model of instruments I'd probably be more likely to buy from one of the MandolinCafe sponsors instead, because they supposedly do proper setups (haven't tested that yet, just going by what I've read in numerous posts at MandolinCafe). As long as the price is the same, might as well get the one that's been inspected and set up - I can see another advantage to that as well, if there was some incurable obvious defect in a mandolin, the tech doing the pre-shipment setup would presumably (hopefully) notice that and go get a different one off the shelf and setup that one for shipment instead... at least that's how I would like to think that such things work.

NFI in any of that, I just sometimes like to look at which companies are selling what, just to see what's out there.

... I wonder if many people have come to the Cafe to purchase a mandoline on the classifieds

That's a good question! Maybe the MandolinCafe classifieds need a section on kitchen gadgets so that internet searchers don't become confused and inadvertently order the wrong thing... "Honey, I don't know how this lovely new $1000 mandolin got here, I ordered a $5 cheese slicer but this is what they sent me, I think we should keep it anyway." Think that would fly?

[Seter]

And your hand! I recently succumbed to buying mandolin. Of course the thing that you feed the veggies in with is pretty much useless, so you do it with your hand.

Any plans for Folkmusician to compete with Amazon in the mandoline market?

[Roger Moss]

I see they currently have a $50 "solid spruce top Rover" (NOT Rogue) mandolin, sunburst, "only 2 left" at the time of this writing, "sold & shipped by Walmart"... now ya know darn well at that price the instrument couldn't possibly be properly "shop inspected and set up" despite what it says on the webpage... Is this the same make/model as the black one that was in a recent thread about Amazon, or was that a different brand? I can't remember.

No, that was a RM-50B, which is all solid woods and has a truss rod, which the 25 series does not. The 25s are not considered very good, and are certainly not "shop inspected and set up". None of the Rovers are, no matter what the website says. Considerable work will need to be done to make one playable.

[Folkmusician.com]

Any plans for Folkmusician to compete with Amazon in the mandoline market?

Haha, well.... It crossed my mind, for the fact that we get search traffic for them. It is a ready made market! It my be feasible to become the leading mandoline dealers!

[Roger Moss]

Haha, well.... It crossed my mind, for the fact that we get search traffic for them. It is a ready made market! It my be feasible to become the leading mandoline dealers!

With thorough inspection and setup, of course...

[Dave Bradford]

Did you know that Amazon also sells “Blue Chips” for $5.00 as an add-on item?

[Roger Moss]

Did you know that Amazon also sells “Blue Chips” for $5.00 as an add-on item?

Amazon sells several models of 'Blue Chips'...
https://www.amazon.com/Garden-Eatin-.../dp/B00VFZ2P5C