New to me Mandolin day!

[JShoe80]

Hi there! My name is Jeff and I am new to the forum and a newbie on mandolin. I started a while back and could play some basic chords, but hadn't really dug in till I was hired to play for a musical, and it put me in high gear. I got hit by the bug and plan on playing the rest of my life.

I started on a Fender FM52-e, which wasn't the nicest instrument :-) A friend loaned me a Ventura F5 copy, which was decent. And recently, I found a wonderful gentleman to trade with to get a real instrument. A Winky Hicks F5 hand-made mando #56 out of 74 so far; sides, back, and neck made from curly maple and top made from red spruce. It definitely needs to be played, but I did some work on it, and bought a LRBaggs Radius pickup for my show. I am pretty stoked!

I am attaching pics, I just wanted to share this, as I am very excited to have my own instrument to really practice and grow on.

Thanks for listening, have a great week, Jeff

[Alfons]

Dude - congrats! Where are the sound clips? How old is that thing? If I remember correctly those cases with the aluminum bands are '70's or 80's? It looks like the back of the neck has a more rounded than V shaped profile - is that correct? I prefer rounded myself. It certainly has some visual mojo - I hope you're enjoying the way it sounds and plays.

[MontanaMatt]

Holy friction burns batman! That looks well worked, is that play wear or builder distressed? Congrats on the upgrade, that ax has mojo! Enjoy

Do you have any info about the builder, they don't seem to be in the builder database?
Happy pickin

[Gunnar]

Congrats! Welcome to the cafe! I'm also curious whether that was builder distressed or just played a lot?