Mandobird in Classified?

[bjc]

Greetings,

Anyone see the mandobird listed in the classified? It has a picture of the Mandobird VIII..which as far as I've heard has yet to be seen. The ad describes the tuners as being "all on one side"...like the regular mandobird with four strings. And they are asking $450 for it...New (if you can find one) the price is $200.
Anyone else find this a little strange?

[bjc]

OK..I guess no one found this strange...but has anyone seen a mandobird VII?

[delsbrother]

I think Ted (Mandohack) has seen some VIIIs, as well as some four-stringers in different colors.

I dunno, the first ones were made in China, and I've seen a bunch of those on eBay with warped necks. After that I think they switched production to Indonesia, but considering no one's seen hide nor hair since NAMM I think they must have had some kind of production/transportation problem.

Now with the tsunami catastrophe, I think mandolin export is the last thing on Indonesia's priority list. #Not sure if that's what's causing the seller to jack the price; it could also have been simple supply and demand - as you said, VIIIs are really scarce here.

The whole situation over there breaks my heart.. I know the "Pac Rim" has taken a beating on these boards, but the sheer scale of the loss is mind-boggling. Does anyone know where the Epi factory is?

On a similar note (and hate to be the big downer here) the South of India was hit very hard as well, and that's where Carnatic musicians hail from. U. Srinivas is from Madras. All I can do is pray for them all and hope they survived. You'd have to think that from sheer numbers alone the world lost a bunch of mandolin fans that day..

[bjc]

Don't worry about being a "downer" the tsunami discussion comes up with every conversation I have just about. It's just amazing the number of people who died on a peaceful Sunday morning without warning.
But back to the listing, the odd thing is that it describes a Mandobird IV, while showing a picture (probably from Musicians Friend) of an VIII and the price is quite high...considering a few weks ago there was a listing for $150. I really do hope the seller is not trying to take advantage of the situation, but I guess if someone wants to buy it, it is up to them.

[Yellowmandolin]

I too found it really strange. I can only imagine that whoever is selling it has no knowledge about it's actual list price.

[Joe Mendel]

I just bought a brand new one from Ken Cartwright about a month ago for $175 plus shipping, & he threw in a gig bag with it. I thought it odd also that they had the wrong picture & the price so high.

[delsbrother]

Hope it was a new gig bag; the Mandobird comes with an Epi one free. Oh yeah, and you get a little Allen ™ key too.

[Joe Mendel]

It came with a TKL padded bag & The little allen key, too.

[PlayerOf8]

MUSIC 123 claims that they will have the new "improved" Epi Mandobird VIII after February 20th, selling $239 with bag.

george