I don't get it

[Mr5150]

https://reverb.com/p/gibson-lloyd-lo...A&hfid=2224219

$65 for shipping??? I got free shipping from the Mandolin Store when I bought my Eastman 515. And it cost .06% of that 84 year old used instrument!

That used mandolin probably does not even come with a case.

[Denny Gies]

Could that be for the insurance?

[Mike Stewart]

Could be boilerplate, maybe not. Doesn't matter, you show up with $149,935 cash, I'll bet they'll take it.

[Mr5150]

Could that be for the insurance?

Maybe, but still....

With that kind of money the purchase should include free shipping, insurance and a decent case.

[Bigskyken]

I'm just guessing, but a person willing to shell out that much for a mandolin can probably afford the shipping fee. But then I suspect anyone seriously wanting it is going to at least try to negotiate a lower purchase price.

[Astro]

Who in their right mind would ship it ? I doubt you could get the routine shipping insurance on it either. That would be a personal pick up transaction. For that money the buyer is going to fly out and pick it up. Or have their butler or personal assistant do it.

[Bill Snyder]

It is not 84 years old.It is 94 years old.

[Ivan Kelsall]

I suspect that there 'could be' some 'insurance' in there - but !!. Just how much would insurance be on a Loar for shipping. It needs to be insured for :- damage / theft / fire / being lost in transit. I suspect that $65 wouldn't cover it. I suppose that any Cafe member that has mandolin insurance could find out via their insurer.

I know that when i had to ship my 'once owned' Weber "Beartooth" 'A' style back to TAMCO in Brighton UK, 9 years or so ago,due to it having developed a warped neck,my insurance/ freight charge was £84 UK,well over $100 US at that time. I think that maybe the $65 is for freight / packaging etc. & that the instrument will be insured under 'Reverb's' own insurance cover - that's how TAMCO UK works,
Ivan

[trevor]

Hi Ivan, I don't recall that but I would usually refund any charges under those circumstances.

[Mandobar]

Different pool of buyers here.

[Jeff Mando]

What amazes me is how the market has sunk on these once impossible to find mandolins. We were discussing this one two months ago in another thread and it is still available! And at $150K as the asking price......

I'm no expert, but I would think with 7.3 billion people in the world, there would always be somebody ready to jump at the chance to own such a "holy grail" instrument -- evidently no so. A couple of months before that, we discussed that between Carter's and Gruhn's there were something like 8 or 9 signed Loars available for sale on the same day in the same town! I'm starting to "doubt" the market.

I know record collectors who have more than one of a rare title for sale would never dream of offering them both at the same time to the public -- that waters down the market -- any farmer will tell you that! You sell one for big money, then wait a little while and sell the other one for big money.

I know when eBay first started it changed the idea of what "rare" meant. Previously impossible to locate items were coming out of the closets for sale at the same time thus causing the prices to drop. Many times I contacted an eBay seller who had the same item that I had and asked if he would be willing to remove his from eBay until mine sold, then list his -- and we both would receive more interest and hopefully more money. Almost everyone agreed to do that and some hadn't even considered that having two of the same thing made it "less rare."

But, yes, shipping is the LEAST of the problem here. The lack of "market" is the real issue.....

[Dale Ludewig]

I doubt that many (not all) people buy a Loar signed mandolin because they want to play it. The probable motive is resale value, just like a stock, and when prices are down or moving down, and there is no foreseeable future point when the market will turn around, who wants to buy this instrument?

[Bill McCall]

...Many times I contacted an eBay seller who had the same item that I had and asked if he would be willing to remove his from eBay until mine sold, then list his -- and we both would receive more interest and hopefully more money. Almost everyone agreed to do that and some hadn't even considered that having two of the same thing made it "less rare."

That's for reminding us of Adam Smith's mention (paraphrased from over 250 years ago) that 'whenever 2 merchants get together, the discussion inevitably migrates to restricting the market'. Or, apparently, it may start right there. Gotta love a 'free market'.

[leftus maximus]

If I really, REALLY needed that instrument in my life and I had the cash for it I'd go get it personally, even if I had to fly from the UK to get it.

[sblock]

It's not so hard to understand, I think. That $65 shipping cost is probably just something that their particular website software does automatically whenever instruments are added to the online inventory. It's likely just some standard amount, based on the weight or the instrument type. I wouldn't get fired up about it.

And yes, it will probably cost whole lot more just to insure this Loar F5 for shipping! Here's a cheap Kentucky A-model mandolin from the same site, with a shipping cost of $71 tacked on, again, probably automatically: here.

[Charlie Bernstein]

It costs a lot to hire a Brink's truck.

[Mr5150]

If I really, REALLY needed that instrument in my life and I had the cash for it I'd go get it personally, even if I had to fly from the UK to get it.

When you think about it, plane fare and a hotel room is nothing in the scheme off things when buying such an instrument. Gosh, a case worthy of such an instrument would cost more than a trip from the UK.

My beef is that it seems really cheap (as in mindset) to charge $65 for shipping

[KGreene]

I'm just guessing, but a person willing to shell out that much for a mandolin can probably afford the shipping fee.

.....

[Jeff Mando]

Gotta love a 'free market'.

Hmmm, sure, uhh, yeah, ok, well........"free market" is great for food and vegetables....let's all have plenty to eat at cheap prices! And I love when gas stations compete and I get to save a dime by driving another block. Wait, it kind of depends on whether you are buying or selling, doesn't it?

Now, collectibles, well, let's see...............going back to the eBay example, in an "ideal" world (as a seller) everyone would be watching every new listing added and are sitting perched and ready to bid to win. But, in the real world the buyer for your item might not be looking at eBay this week. eBay is kind of "old news" at this point in time. But, when it first arrived on the scene it was amazing and that's why I still hang on to the dream. Back then I'm firmly convinced that you could list a $100K item for an opening bid of a quarter and in a week it would still bring the full $100K or more! Today, it rarely happens. That's why people try to "direct" the market with Buy It Now's, reserves, and other angles. Nowadays, I believe if you put a signed Loar on eBay for a 25 cent opening bid, a week later it would probably peter out at $35-45K, IMHO. So, yeah, collectibles are different......

[David Kennedy]

When I look at the Reverb Ad here in Australia, the price is $208,509.58 Australian and the shipping cost is $278.01 Australian. Obviously the shipping price is automatically calculated on where you live.
Cheers, from Down Under

[Ivan Kelsall]

Hi Trevor - You might remember me part-exing my Weber 'Beartooth' for my Lebeda 'Special'. It was originally going to take several months to send the Weber back to the US to have it put right. You offered me a loan of the Lebeda, & i then asked if you'd part ex. it,which you agreed to do.

I then had to return the Weber to you - I sent it back by ''next day delivery'' & i insured it for the full value of the instrument,which was at the time i think, £1,765 UK. The fee for freight / insurance was £84.

Why would i expect you to pay a penny of it ??. It was my responsibility in getting it safely back to you - not yours. I don't work like that. I think that you more than made up any ''disparity'' when you sold me my Ellis "A" style = IOU,
Ivan

[allenhopkins]

Not to hijack, but:

Quote from the Norman's Rare Guitars ad: Intonation is notoriously inaccurate if left in original condition. Most specimens require significant work to become playable in a modern context, but produce a robust range of tones.

True? Is the intonation "notoriously inaccurate" on Lloyd Loar F-5's if they aren't given "significant work?"

I hear that '20's Gibson mandolins sometimes had inaccurate fret placement, supposedly due to worn jigs mis-locating the fingerboard slots, but I'd not heard that about Loars.

[JeffD]

I doubt that many (not all) people buy a Loar signed mandolin because they want to play it. The probable motive is resale value, just like a stock, and when prices are down or moving down, and there is no foreseeable future point when the market will turn around, who wants to buy this instrument?

I don't see any evidence of that, not many investors' primary vehicle is vintage mandolins, and there is no foreseeable future at all, in either direction. I.e. there is the same amount of reason to think prices will turn as there is to think they won't.

I am not sure there is a big enough market to apply the traditional market rules without some serious thought. With the same amount of evidence I would guess that most would buy it to play it, though perhaps as part of their stable as opposed to their primary instrument.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Referring to Allen's post - Didn't Chris Thile allude to some fretting inaccuracy in one Lloyd Loar mandolin that he played ?. I'm sure i saw a YouTube clip of him playing a Loar,maybe at the time that he was selecting a second one to buy,& he mentioned some tonal inaccuracies up the neck.

I feel sure that it was one of the reasons why he had the fingerboard replaced. I reckon Steve Gilchrist would be the guy to ask on this one !,
Ivan

[Tobin]

That's for reminding us of Adam Smith's mention (paraphrased from over 250 years ago) that 'whenever 2 merchants get together, the discussion inevitably migrates to restricting the market'. Or, apparently, it may start right there. Gotta love a 'free market'.

See: Price Fixing. When competitors in a market collude with each other to artificially manipulate the market, it's called price fixing and it's usually illegal. Nobody would likely know or care when it's done for obscure junk on eBay, but it's not exactly the kind of behavior that should be admitted in public.

Referring to Allen's post - Didn't Chris Thile allude to some fretting inaccuracy in one Lloyd Loar mandolin that he played ?.

Chris Thile is on record saying that Loar F5s had inaccurate fretboards, and he actively encourages people to replace their boards with corrected ones. He had it done on his first Loar, and I would imagine he has since had it done on his second as well. He talked about it in a 2012 interview with Dan Beimborn in London. Here's what he said (I bolded the relevant part):

I would advise anyone who has a Loar — take the thing out of the ***damn case! It is NOT a museum piece, it is an instrument. It is an instrument that needs to be played. If you're not playing it, find someone who will and loan it to them. Let them play it. It's like how sad it is to see a cheetah in a zoo. It makes me SO MAD. Anyone that ever looks at mine and says "Oh man, you put some scratches on it, eh? " ... **** OFF. It drives me absolutely crazy that people baby these things. I mean, by all means, take care of it, make sure it doesn't get stolen, that kind of thing. Keep it out of harm's way, but PLAY IT. Tour with it! Make music on that thing, it's dying to be played. They are such brilliant instruments. AND — get it in playable condition... take the fingerboard off. The jig in the factory was WRONG. if you keep the thing in original condition, it's not playable! The frets up on the top end are out of tune! It drives me to distraction that people who deify these things and don't get them in playable condition and play them. They are brilliant instruments.

Loar was not God. He was a very good instrument builder. Sorry. It's a little rant. "Play your Loar."