Ran into a guy at the "Crooktop" festival in Bradford PA a couple weekends ago, who had purchased from a jobber, a bunch of the plywood "Army-Navy" type mandolins that Gibson used to offer at its Opryland facility, pre-flood. The mandolins were unfinished, and in some cases only partially assembled, so he assembled and finished them, and had a couple for sale at his booth.
He said that the instruments, though sold as "Gibsons," were Korean-made, and pretty dodgy as to quality. Some of them couldn't take being strung up to standard pitch, and others had neck curvatures, other flaws. I told him that what I'd read here on the Cafe, was that they were pretty much "souvenir" quality, not really intended to be serious instruments.
The seller's name is Don Gardner, and he basically builds Appalachian dulcimers, some other instruments as well. He had some nice vintage guitars and banjos in his booth. Here's a link to Gardner's Dulcimer for anyone interested; NFI for me, of course.
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