Student Model Mandola for classroom?

[Tenore76]

Greetings! I've lurked quite a while on here, out of general interest, but this is the first occasion I've had to post.

I'm a middle school teacher, who's primarily a vocalist, but somehow found himself teaching guitar, then ukulele, then starting a weird fretted orchestra thing that incorporated ukulele, guitar, and bass reading parts as a traditional orchestra would. Then, we had a student who quit orchestra, but wanted to keep playing, and I had just purchased a couple of Savannah Mandolins for just such an occasion. Now, that "fretted orchestra" includes 2 mandolins, as well.

Which comes to my question for y'all. I know I have at least two viola players who were top players in the orchestra quitting and joining my chorus next year, though plan to keep playing their instruments. I LOVE introducing these instruments to the kids who don't know that there's very little they have to do to transition from one to the next, so I'd like to have a couple of Mandolas to hand to kids, as well.

The problem is, I was able to get pretty playable mandolins for around $100 a piece. I've not found anywhere that I could find a mandola of like quality for less than $500. Admittedly, I know next to nothing about them, though I do have friends who DO know quite a bit. Can anyone direct me to a company that makes quality, affordable mandolas, who might also give a discount to a school program? I'm just looking for perhaps two instruments. The two mandolin players I now have just borrowed my classroom instruments until they were sure they were interested, then bought their own, which I would anticipate in this case, as well.

Any assistance would be appreciated!

Regards,

Paul Marchese
Hadley Jr. High
Triple Fret Fretted Orchestra

[BoxCarJoe]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mandola-by-...frcectupt=true

I own one of these and it's a very good buy.

[Seter]

Yeah the Hora mandolas are probably going to be closest thing for that budget. I've owned a Hora octave mandolin and a Hora bouzouki, both are no frills but serviceable instruments made from all solid woods. They may need some set up work but that's generally to be expected anyway.

[August Watters]

Agree, the Hora is probably a solid choice for young students. A step up from there might be the flat tenor mandola from Musikalia -- made in Sicily.

NFI, of course.

[wildpikr]

And BTW,,,welcome to the forum!