why is it you can buy a decent solid wood guitar for $225.00 with shipping. like I just did a Recording King RP-A9M / 0 parlor, but you can't find a decent A style mandolin at that price point.
why is it you can buy a decent solid wood guitar for $225.00 with shipping. like I just did a Recording King RP-A9M / 0 parlor, but you can't find a decent A style mandolin at that price point.
There are a couple of different factors at work here. First, a flat top guitar uses all flat woods, so construction is easier and faster. A carved top mandolin uses carved wood, which wastes more wood, takes longer, and is more time consuming and labor instensive to put together. This is true even if the plates are CNC machined. Even with those some hand work is necessary. For another thing, guitars are way more popular than mandolins, and so are made in hugely greater quantities. In manufacturing anything, the greater the quantities you make, the more the per unit cost goes down. There are a lot of different reasons, but mainly, larger quantities means some of the operations can be done in batches and more assembly line techniques can be utilized.
As a rule of thumb, with lower and middle line instruments, we are fond of saying that a mandolin should cost twice that of a guitar of comparable quality. Thus, with your 225 price point, a comparable mandolin should cost 450. We have several Kentucky models, some The Loar models, and Eastman 304/305 sitting comfortably there. The formula works until you get to the really high price points. I’m not sure, for example, if a 25,000 dollar Dude can be compared with any guitar. Come to think of it, and this hit me just now, comparing mandolins with guitars really only works up to a point. They are apples and oranges. It’s more useful to compare fine high end mandolins to fine high end violins. They have more in common.
Don
2016 Weber Custom Bitterroot F
2011 Weber Bitterroot A
1974 Martin Style A
What Don said, plus I think there's a bit of the "well, they're willing to pay for it" factor.Mando players can get pretty fanatic in what they want.
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Handcrafted pennywhistles in exotic hardwoods.
You also have to figure in the number of units sold. As production increases, cost per unit decreases. I would also guess that because the mandolin is smaller, it may be a more difficult build. (I could be wrong about that. I was dropped on my head a lot as a kid and might have bammaged my drain.)
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And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.
Because all mandolins contain a hidden heart of the purest melodium, the most expensive element in the galaxy.
Just because it's made of "solid wood" doesn't mean it's going to sound any good. You need a luthier to work with the wood and his/her time and skills cost far more than the price of the materials.
Tony, I am glad to hear you are enjoying the Recording King guitar! The same organization that builds that little beauty creates Kentucky Mandolins, as you know well. They are, as has been stated above, in the $400 range for a similar quality in a carved top instrument. Good thread!
Isn't recording king from the same stable as "the Loar" mandolins. Greg Rich & Music Link, while Kentuckys are made by Saga?
What we really need is a company - like Saga, maybe - to roll out production of a flat-top mandolin. In theory, it would seem to me that a maker like Kentucky would be able to make a budget flat-top mandolin for the price of something like the OP's Recording King.
Then again, I just remembered Saga also makes Trinity College mandolins. And they're even more expensive than their base-model carved-top Kentuckys. Hmm.
Anyway, I would think there'd be a big market for any company that could figure out how to make a decent solid-wood, flat-top mandolin at around the $300 price range.
Ok, so let me get this straight. The guy who actually gives a lucid, detailed, and perfectly locical explanation gets one “thank you”, and the guy who give the clever smarty pants one line “joke” gets 5 “thank you”s?
I thought the thank you function was for posts that others found “useful”. Are jokes more useful to answering questions now than actual facts? I guess it depends on what you mean by useful.
Don
2016 Weber Custom Bitterroot F
2011 Weber Bitterroot A
1974 Martin Style A
Hora flat-top mandolins sold via Thomann are solid woods, and under 200$ including shipping from Germany. There are actually quite a few different affordable solid wood mandolin options via Thomann if you're looking for something besides archtop mandolins.
Recording King is a Music Link brand. Kentucky mandolins are imported by Saga Music. Two different organizations.
"It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
--M. Stillion
"Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
--J. Garber
"It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
--M. Stillion
"Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
--J. Garber
The main reason is relative size of the guitar culture versus the mandolin culture, I think. There is a huge gigantic market for inexpensive guitars. Huge. Many many many more people want a guitar than want a mandolin.
That translates into lots of retailers working to get the business of those buyers.
A mandolin, even at a reasonable price, will hang from the wall of a typical retailer for months if not years.
Do a Google Image search on the mandolin you're looking at. Many times that will pop up another just like it that is branded by a known manufacturer. As far as the Hora built instruments go, they are all over eBay.
Harley Benton appears to be the brand name they apply to a series of imported instruments. Most of them look familiar including the electric. By the way, they list that electric as a Bluegrass instrument.
The Harley Benton electric looks suspiciously like and Eastwood Mandocaster and a half dozen other imported brands. That price doesn't look bad but I think the shipping might kill it.
"It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
--M. Stillion
"Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
--J. Garber
Thanks guys. I sure blew it with the Recording King -- Kentucky connection! Thanks for straightening that out for me. Loar it is, then!
I believe Kentucky once had a flat top model.
I also think the better lower level mandolins have more hand work than comparable guitars.
Brentrup Model 23, Boeh A5 #37, Gibson A Jr., Flatiron 1N, Coombe Classical flattop, Strad-O-Lin
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https://www.facebook.com/Longtine-Am...14404553312723
now my next question is were can I find a hard shell case for this 0 parlor guitar that won't break the bank. I don't want to spend more for the case than I did for this guitar, I don't want to go over $125.00, with free shipping would be nice.
Kentucky used to make the KM-100, a laminated wood flat top that was more or less an Army Navy pancake design. They also made the KM-100S, a s version with a solid top. These were quite inexpensive, around 100 dollars or do in the 80’s and early 90’s, so translate that to today’s dollars and there you go.
Don
2016 Weber Custom Bitterroot F
2011 Weber Bitterroot A
1974 Martin Style A
There is also a theory, at least in the guitar world, in the guitar world that, at the cheaper end of the market, you're better off with a plywood "box" than one thrown together with solid woods. Solid woods can distort if not handled skilfully.
"It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
--M. Stillion
"Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
--J. Garber
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