Anyone seen these yet?

[johnsmusic]

BTW, the white one is mine. I will probably put a tortoise pickguard on it. John

[zeke]

Well there certainly are quite a few deals to be had out there at much less than mando bros' "pie in the sky" prices. I'd say $1000-1500 would be more appropriate unless things have gotten more turned around recently than I'm aware of. I've got a '66 that I've got less than a grand in; there's more deals floating around I'm sure.

But I have to admit that from a purely "lust in my heart" place, that white one is about as sexy as they get. Seriously, that's yours John?

[johnsmusic]

Yes, should be here in a day or two. I can't explain it, just went ahead and called Stan. I have known him for years and bought from him before I owned a music store. He has always been very nice to me and anytime I get something very rare that I know that he can get bigger dollars for I send it to him. In return, any time I need a concrete appraisal of something vintage, he is very gracious with his time and knowledge and has never charged me a penny. Not like certain others who want $100-$150 for a written appraisal. I am not a Fender dealer and even if I was, would probably not be able to obtain one so what the heck. I too had a '60's one which I paid about $1100 for and sold for about $1500. J

[uncle ken]

A friend of mine works at the factory in Corona, CA where the custom shop is located. He used my '64 as the model for the ones at the NAMM show. They often don't have any records to work from for the 60's reissues so they must use an actual instrument and carefully scan, measure and photograph every detail. I played the ones at the NAMM show and they were every bit as good as the vintage ones.

I bought the '64 for $1100 last year and it appeared to have been barely ever played and left in a closet since it was new.

[zeke]

So, did you get it, johnsmusic? Is it as nice as your old one? Better, worse?

[johnsmusic]

Not yet....?! I expected to see it Monday but nothing so far. John

[zeke]

How frustrating, I hope all is well. But please keep us posted.

[jefflester]

I paid a visit to Mandolin Brothers this past Saturday (all the way from L.A. - okay I didn't go just to visit the store but...) and checked these out. I've never seen one in person before, much less played one, but man I didn't care for them (either the vintage one or custom shop one). The neck is awkwardly wide, feels like a log to me. Like they were designed for guitar players rather than mandolin players. My only previous experience with a 4-string electric has been a Mandobird, which I returned because the neck was unnaturally narrow (15/16" at the nut), but a Mandobird with say a 1&1/16" nutwidth would feel better to me than one of these.

But they sure looked cool, and the custom shoppers looked and felt very much like the vintage one. I only played the sunburst custom shop one. I didn't bother plugging any of them in, since I didn't like the way they felt.

The white one was still on the wall on Saturday, so it certainly wouldn't have appeared on Monday. :-(

The Rono was pretty weird, too.

But then maybe I'm just not destined to be an emando player.

I didn't see the Rigel killer bee, either it's no longer there or I just missed it. They did have a blue G-5, which was pretty nice.

[Ted Eschliman]

They did have a blue G-5, which was pretty nice.

Rumor has it that there is a (signature red to yellow sunburst) "Atomic Burst" G5 in the oven at Rigel. Should be done in a couple weeks.
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