Are All Lloyd Loars Dropping In Price?

[Bill McCall]

Oh I'd come out, but there might be a few lumps under my coat

[goaty76]

If I were to take a Loar, a Gilchrist, a Heiden, a Kimble, a Dude, a Nugget, a Northfield Artist Model and let's say... a Duff... all F5s... and lock you up in a room with them for a couple of hours... well, I'd say you'd come out a very confused camper! I know I would...

Sure, a Loar is a Loar... but

Some people, myself included, appreciate the history and artistry that goes along with it. From what I hear a Northfield is a great mandolin but for me the historical significance of the Loar is where the added 100k of value is. That level of importance will never go away and to me only goes up in value (both monetarily and historically) as it is “copied” by today’s best builders.

[Doug Freeman]

In the documentary Highly Strung, which is about the Australian String Quartet and the search by their patron to select instruments to be used by the quartet, there is a segment on the Carpenters, who broker Stradivarius instruments, as jet setters, society personalities, etc.

Thanks for this tip, btw, streamable on Amazon Prime. It really is a fun and informative movie, better than I expected from the reviews I read. What a horror show that Carpenter family is! Especially when compared with the righteousness of the young luthier in Cremona and the ASQ cellist whose Guadagnini he was tasked with replicating. Quite inspiring.

[grassrootphilosopher]

If I were to take a Loar, a Gilchrist, a Heiden, a Kimble, a Dude, a Nugget, a Northfield Artist Model and let's say... a Duff... all F5s... and lock you up in a room with them for a couple of hours... well, I'd say you'd come out a very confused camper! I know I would...

Sure, a Loar is a Loar... but

You would come out a very confused camper for sure.

It has been discussed and I agree that there is a noticable difference in the perception of sound of a LL when you are the audience as opposed when you play the LL.

Someone once told me that he was baffled by how close my Duff came to the LL F-5 sound. The very small yet noticable difference costs you (if you are inclined to go all the way.)

On another note; one time I was listening to a jamsession with a very nice teens blacktop F-2, a 20ies Fern a Northfield F-5 and some other fine instruments. The similarities stuck out more than the differences. The "lesser" sound quality in some instruments were noticable yet not disagreeably so (Northfield as opposed to the vintage Fern); the vintage oval hole instruments sounded very, very nice in the mix, just different.

Try to determine a price/vintage sound relation between a HoGo (Adrian Minarovic) F-5, a Vana F-5, a Red Diamond F-5, a Gilchrist F-5 (pre 2000 and post 2000) a vintage Fern and a LL. Boy will it get interesting.

[lowtone2]

Do the Loar F5s represent a step-change in mandolin building? That's what the Cremona violin makers such as Stradivari, Amati, Guarneri did. Substantially all violin family instruments, except for bass, have been based on those designs for 300 years. I think so, and that the Gibson Loar will hold up that long, but that's calculated strictly by the WAG method. Compared to violin, mandolins are niche. I think.

I remember thumbing through the jazz rack in a small record store, and stumbling onto a David Grisman album, "Dawg Jazz, Dawg Grass". Before that I had only some vague awareness of the instrument. The Grisman discovery led to everything New Acoustic, to Jethro, to Bill, Frets magazine, Mandocrucian Digest, Mandolin World News, etc and an extreme awareness and lust for the Loar F5. I think that many others of my generation had a similar introduction to the instrument.

Do younger generations have anything that parallels that, or is that experience needed? Chris Thile and a few others have made an impact, but who is next?

[Mandobar]

Thanks for this tip, btw, streamable on Amazon Prime. It really is a fun and informative movie, better than I expected from the reviews I read. What a horror show that Carpenter family is! Especially when compared with the righteousness of the young luthier in Cremona and the ASQ cellist whose Guadagnini he was tasked with replicating. Quite inspiring.

They are ghastly, aren't they? I'm not sure the two violinists' careers who walked off the job at ASQ have ever recovered. At the end of the documentary they have taken jobs at a fast food restaurant (if I remember correctly). I have googled them, and they seem to still be playing, but not at the level they were, and certainly not playing instruments of the caliber they were with ASQ.

[Mandobar]

Do the Loar F5s represent a step-change in mandolin building? That's what the Cremona violin makers such as Stradivari, Amati, Guarneri did. Substantially all violin family instruments, except for bass, have been based on those designs for 300 years. I think so, and that the Gibson Loar will hold up that long, but that's calculated strictly by the WAG method. Compared to violin, mandolins are niche. I think.

I remember thumbing through the jazz rack in a small record store, and stumbling onto a David Grisman album, "Dawg Jazz, Dawg Grass". Before that I had only some vague awareness of the instrument. The Grisman discovery led to everything New Acoustic, to Jethro, to Bill, Frets magazine, Mandocrucian Digest, Mandolin World News, etc and an extreme awareness and lust for the Loar F5. I think that many others of my generation had a similar introduction to the instrument.

Do younger generations have anything that parallels that, or is that experience needed? Chris Thile and a few others have made an impact, but who is next?

I'm not sure that mandolins are ever going to get to the status level of investments in the same way that violins have; and not only Strads, there are other makers like Matsuda, Bernadel, Stopka or even some of the early Roth violins (from the 1920's) that command high static prices. By "static" I mean stable and consistent.

I am also thinking that the lull in income-producing gigs over the next 18 months might quell any performing artist who is interested in purchasing a pricey instrument's ability to consummate a high dollar transaction. Only time will tell what gigs will look like as many of the performance venues are suffering the same fate as other businesses.