More ebay emandos

[John L]

Any comments on the StewMac? Are they kit mandos? If so, this one looks like it was was well built. Not sure about the starting price...

[mrmando]

Hi John. I don't think this one's a kit mando. It has the headstock decal and is probably one of the ones built by Don MacRostie and sold through StewMac as a completed instrument. These are rare; the price back in the mid-80s was $500-600 IIRC; and it has the Parsons-White string bender; so I don't think the asking price of $900 is out of whack at all. I haven't encountered more than 2 or 3 of these in the whole time I've been chasing electric mandolins.

I had one of the kit StewMacs in stock for a while (no bender, no sunburst, no decal) and sold it for $600. The one on eBay is a significant upgrade from that.

[John L]

Hi John. I don't think this one's a kit mando. It has the headstock decal and is probably one of the ones built by Don MacRostie and sold through StewMac as a completed instrument. These are rare; the price back in the mid-80s was $500-600 IIRC; and it has the Parsons-White string bender; so I don't think the asking price of $900 is out of whack at all. I haven't encountered more than 2 or 3 of these in the whole time I've been chasing electric mandolins.

I had one of the kit StewMacs in stock for a while (no bender, no sunburst, no decal) and sold it for $600. The one on eBay is a significant upgrade from that.

Thanks for the info.! I didn't know StewMac sold completed instruments. I guess that is why I hang out here - love to learn.

The bender looks interesting - what do you know about that? Has anyone else built a mando with the bender? Is it hard to use? Is it even useful?

[mzuch]

This one looks interesting, a 1986 from Jeff Harrison of Unicorn, despite the out-of-focus listing photos. Is anyone familiar with his e-mando work? Impressions?

[jefflester]

Nice birdseye.

Adding picture for posterity.

[Scott Tichenor]

Ted and I had a discussion about this thread and decided to close it and to have these posted in the future in a more current thread in the eBay section. In the process I moved some of the more recent posts into the other one so the are no longer a part of this older thread.