KM-160 w/o truss rod

[Michael Donnel]

Just bought a KM160 off eBay. When I got it I carefully inspected it for issues since it was used. What I noticed was there was no truss rod and closer inspection in the sound holes reveals no seam in the wood used for the back. Looking at the cross section of the f-hole it looks like layers of wood versus solid. The sticker in the body says KM160 - Saga Instruments Co. South San Francisco. Any ideas if this is an earlier model or what? Thank you

[Torpedotom]

No truss rod was the reason I didn't bid on it, but bought a nice KM 150 that did and was solid wood. According to Saga, the first two numbers of the serial number is the year it was made. Hope this helped.

[Michael Donnel]

No truss rod was the reason I didn't bid on it, but bought a nice KM 150 that did and was solid wood. According to Saga, the first two numbers of the serial number is the year it was made. Hope this helped.

The description on eBay was very vague but the pictures looked pretty good on it. I inspected it when I received it and it was not as "presteen" as the ad said. It is laminated but there is no warp or damage in the body. There were pieces of drywall compound in it and a slight water stain in the lower portion of the body. However there was no external issues in that area. What was odd, and not visible i the eBay pictures was the what I found on/around the lower fretboard. It appears that a harsh cleaning was done to it. Since a string was broke during shipping I could not play it completely, but strumming it up and down the neck with can't tell there are any apparent issues. Yes, I looked at the KM150 auction hard and since I am new to this I evidently overlooked some items due to inexperience with mandolins. Great job on getting the 150. I am still bummed about the mando and after reaching out to the seller on this he is non-responsive to my emails.

[Torpedotom]

I sent the seller a couple of questions about the mandolin as I thought it might be a really nice older model. He was somewhat curt with his answers so I became less interested and then thought about a truss rod. When I saw that it didn't have one, I disregarded it altogether. Sorry to hear that it is not as nice as you had expected.

[theCOOP]

This is why I hate that they maintain the same model numbers despite various very significant running changes.

[EdHanrahan]

... He was somewhat curt with his answers so I became less interested ...

+1.

With eBay, it's good practice to ask questions regardless of whether you need the answer - let's you know who you're dealing with.

[Michael Donnel]

+1.

With eBay, it's good practice to ask questions regardless of whether you need the answer - let's you know who you're dealing with.

Yeah, this is a bad experience. When I sent him the initial message through eBay that I found problems he would not respond.

[Michael Donnel]

Looking closer at the eBay listing I noticed the seller allows for returns. I'll go that route

[Folkmusician.com]

It sounds like this is a Korean madeKM-160. As you found out, these are entirely different than the Chinese made KM-160 series. The older versions being laminated with no truss rods, the newer ones, all solid with truss rods. At that point in time, there was also a Korean KM-160-S which had a solid top. I believe the back and sides were still laminated.

I highly recommend looking for a newer KM-150. Late 2012 or newer. From late 2012 on, they have gotten progressively better. No major spec changes, just steadily improving workmanship.