No, not the hot girl from church. Well, she probably is too. But I'm talking about the $125,000 Gibson F5 Loar era mandolin that my somewhat local shop, Daves Guitar Shop, had for sale.
A few months back when I was checking out local inventories, I saw the listing for the F5. I recalled the recent article/interview of George Gruhn that I read where he discussed guitar prices and the three classes of guitar buyers (players, collectors, and speculators) and thought that even given the rarity of the mandolin, Dave's would be holding onto that F5 for awhile at the six figure price.
Wrong. Curious to see if they had gotten any used Gibsons in stock, I saw they had already sold the Loar era F5. This got me curious about who is buying these.
I've seen the videos where Carter's or whatnot brings in the likes of Chris Thile or Sierra Hull and they then play these six figure $ mandolins. Are they the main market for them-wealthy, accomplished players looking THE tone to record with? Or are they being snatched up by speculators looking to make a profit?
Frankly, I think it's fascinating and very cool that many people value musical instruments as much as they do.
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