Mandolins in Your Region

[Lee]

Philly is the sixth largest USA city with an extensive and hugely populated metroplitan area, "The Greater Delaware Valley". We have a few Sam Ash and George's music stores with low-end pacrim mandolins. And Fred Oster's place in center city specializing in vintage instruments. And Medley Music way out in Villanova with the inventory below. Otherwise nothing that I know of. How about your region?
COLLINGS MF5
COLLINGS MT
Michael Kelly Legacy Classic
Michael Kelly Legacy Deluxe
Michael Kelly Legacy FS
PARSONS F style Lloyd Loar model
RIGEL R100
WEBER Bighorn mandocello
WEBER Bridger Custom
WEBER Gallatin Custom
WEBER Yellowstone Octave F Style

[steve in tampa]

Before I sold off a lot of 8, I had more mandloins in my house than all of the stores in Tampa combined. Down to 7, and thats better than any 3 combined. I have only seen 1 new Gibson in town in the last 3 years. Mars had about 4 Flatirons before they went tits up. I end up taking my chances buying sight unseen, and then separating the wheat from the chaff. It stands to reason that a better selection of new and used would be in major music industry towns like Nashville, Austin, New York and L.A

[Wesley]

Same thing in the Dallas Ft Worth area. I'm pretty sure there is one Collings over in Dallas and Weatherford has a few of the lower priced Webers. Otherwise it's just cheap imports. I was thinking about it the other day. If a store has to make a choice between having a 5,000 mandolin on it's shelf or TWO guitars for 2500 each - which do you think they will choose ? Sad to say but mandolins are still a limited part of the market compared to guitars. INHO

[Wesley]

Steve - I grew up in Largo Florida across the bay. Wasn't there a place called the Bluegrass Shop on Central in St Petersburg ? Anyplace else to buy a good instrument ? I get back there from time to time to visit family.

[Eric F.]

Lee,

Where I live you can go to one store and choose among three Dean mandolins, or go to the other store and choose between one Dean and a Kentucky 150. I think I got you beat, pal! There are a couple of stores with decent stock in St. Louis, about two hours' driving time away, and Nashville is about 200 miles the other direction.

[arbarnhart]

Depends on how far I am willing to drive. I am in Raleigh. About 60 miles west is a store that is one of the Gibson Bluegrass dealers. About 20 miles east is Zepp's in Wendell, which has a better inventory than the rest of Raleigh combined and people behind the counter than know what they are. Hopefully someone will correct me with a pointer to another store, but most of the Raleigh stores have no mandos or one at the low end. A couple of stores have one or two higher end ones, but even then they usually only have one at each price point, limiting comparisons.

[Big Joe]

Woe is me...everytime I go to work I'm surrounded by 40-100 mandolins...all good ones. That doesn't count the pacrim ones. .

[lindensensei]

In Orlando there is a store at The Guitar Factory that has the only Gibson mandolins in town... the whole town... and they are all mine on consignment. And there is not another quality intrument for sale in Central Florida. Boy, it should be a seller's market.

[sunburst]

If I ever get ahead on mandolins, I'll probably consign one to Picker's Supply in Fredricksburg VA. They keep more mandolin inventory than most small music stores.
They show this for mandolin inventory right now.

[Hondo]

Despite what you might expect, Mandolin selection in Austin is pathetic. Cheap Pac-Rims abound. Guitars, on the other hand, are everywhere.

[addcourt]

Living in Lansing, MI for a few years gave me a terminal case of BAS, GAS and MAS. Now that I'm living in a small northwestern CT village I've got this computer to fuel the virus. Dan--you might contact George Gibson down in ST. Cloud. Saw him last year and he had over 100 banjos and some guitars and mandolins. If he doesn't have what you want, he can find it for you.

[250sc]

45 minutes from Elderly. Life's pretty good.

[Knowlesy]

I am fortunate to be within a hours drive of http://www.theacousticmusicco.co.uk/ which has an excellent selection. The best within a few thousand miles I'd bet.

[Lee]

Man, if I lived that close to Elderly there'd be a groove carved in the road. Or blisters on my bare feet because I couldn't afford shoes.

[mzbanjo]

Yeah, I'm about an hour from Elderly. I go usually about once a month. Was a little disappointed (sp?) last time as everything I picked up (guitars and mandos) was out of tune.

[steve in tampa]

Steve - I grew up in Largo Florida across the bay. Wasn't there a place called the Bluegrass Shop on Central in St Petersburg ? Anyplace else to buy a good instrument ? I get back there from time to time to visit family.

Wes,

The Bluegrass Shop is still there. I don't go over the bridge for much.

I am in South Tampa by MacDill AFB, Westshore and Gandy area.

Ken Baily is a Weber Dealer in Plant City, and The Bluegrass Parlor is on Busch.

I sold a Gibson F9 and it is at Legends Music on Hillsborough.

We used to go and jam a little at the music stores on the weekend, but lately there hasn't been any playable. mandolins at all. Some really poorly set up Fenders and store brands.

Let me know when you are in town. We attend a couple of open mics a week, and play some other gigs. Always fun the meet up with another mandolin player!

[RichM]

Philly is the sixth largest USA city with an extensive and #hugely populated metroplitan area, "The Greater Delaware Valley". We have a few Sam Ash and George's music stores with low-end pacrim mandolins. And Fred Oster's place in center city specializing in vintage instruments. And Medley Music way out in Villanova with the inventory below. #Otherwise nothing that I know of. #How about your region?

I agree that the Philadelphia area is not that great for mandolins, but there are a couple of other shops worth visiting. Joe Todaro's shop in Lansdowne has an unusual assortment of mandolins, a few name brands (ie, Weber) and a lot of oddball stuff. Bucks County Folk Music near Doylestown always has a few mandolins, and their acoustic music orientation is a welcome respite from the Guitar Centers and Sam Ashes that seem to dominate this region.

[Lee]

Yes, kudos for Bucks County Folk. A nice selection of better Kentucky's, an old oval Gibson mandola, and a Terris F5 built in NJ. (How could I forget.) And Richboro Music has been threatening to keep a Breedlove mandolin in stock ever since their first one sold last summer within 6-weeks.
Never heard of the place in Lansdowne.

[mandobando]

I'm not quite in Joe's boat every day, but I can find a good mandolin if need be here in Nahville. I think I am spoiled as I am reading these posts. I go out to Gibson a couple times a month to check out the stock and it feels like a long way though it's only a fifteen minute drive. I've never met Joe or Charlie but if either one of you read this, thanks for a heck of a great store! Every time I get in a fight with the old lady I head out east. Something about the sound and feel of a Gibson makes me forget it all.

[John Flynn]

St. Louis is doing pretty well. We have two non-chain, locally owned stores that each carry a fair amount of mandos. One handles Rigel and the other handles Breedlove. Both handle a lot of Webers and Mid-mos and each store has a few misc. Pacrim and used mandos. One store generally has about 25-30 mandos in stock at any given time, the other maybe 20.

[Jim Garber]

I live about 1 hour north of New York City. Closer to my house there are two small music stores with a sum total of maybe 4 or 5 PacRim mandolins. Sam Ash is no better with just a small sampling. There is Toys in the Attic], a vintage dealer, but I can;t recall seeing much in the way of mandolins there, tho they usually have some nice vintage acoustic and electric guitars.

The city is not all that much better. Besides Matt Umanov's and Mandolin Brothers, Rudy;s music usally have a small wall of mandolins in their acoustic room. I did try a Rigel, A9 and a 60s F5 there on last visit. Lark Street in Tenafly, NJ is the other place to go and they sually have a nice selection with a few Collings and interesting vintage. So, we are not all that much better than Philadelphia, tho even larger.

Jim

[acousticphd]

Woe is me...everytime I go to work I'm surrounded by 40-100 mandolins...all good ones. #

And unfortunately, about 40,000 cars milling about trying to fit into 20,000 parking spaces, right, Big Joe?

It is interesting that here in Nashville, you only very occasionally see a noteworthy acoustic guitar or mandolin listed for sale in the newspaper classified section. Not much problem finding a nice new mandolin, but I fear much harder to sell a nice used one. Most of the trading must be under the radar.

Sounds like when I need to sell a few, I ought to plan drive to Dallas or Tampa and sell 'em out the back of my car like tamales.

[Pen]

Denver's got a couple higher end music stores (like the Olde Towne Pickin Parlor) with a reasonable collection to try out (Gibson's, Collings, etc). There's also a store (Rockley Music I think) that is the Gibson retailer here and has always had an F9 along with some lesser mando's. We have the regular spots like Guitar Center that seem to deal in the less expensive, run of the mill mando's (like a Godin).

I've heard that Boulder has a pretty decent store - but have never remembered to stop by there when I've been there so I can't speak to their selection nor remember the name of the spot.

In addition, there's some good small maker luthiers in Colorado (such as my Turkey Creek out of Morrison, CO). Overall, it sounds like we have it pretty good compared to some other parts of the country!

[otterly2k]

Todaro's in Lansdowne is also stocking a really lovely bowlback that is ONE PIECE carved bowl and neck... seems nicely appointed... the owner is involved with mandolin orchestra stuff in this area. He also stocks a wide variety of instruments from around the world... website is www.worldfrets.com .. take a look around.
(no financial interest...just stumbled across it in my own mandolin searchings here in the area...)
KE

[mikeyes]

Lee,

What about Vintage Instruments downtown 1529 Pine Street (www.vintage-instruments.com)? My son lives in Philly and we visit there every time we go and it has a lot of vintage instruments including 3 snakeheads and 10 other vintage Gibsons right now.

Sadly he is moving to Rochester, NY so I will have to hang out at Bernunzio's teh next time we visit.