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Thread: Describe your MAS progression

  1. #76

    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    So I grew up with a Kiso-Suzuki bowlback in the house (model MR-150). I played around on some Fender F-styles, and growing up I always thought I'd play an F. The curves of it just appealed to me.

    So last year I started saving up for an Ibanez F, being an Ibanez guitar player (I've a metric tonne of), and since I own a Uke by them that's yet to let me down. Figured "What the heck, they make a damn nice F-style, it looks good, I've played it at a few outings with mates, let's go for it!"

    Then the damnedest thing happened. I found the same model bowlback my da plays on the Electronic Bay for sale, and for under £200!

    Needless to say, being the nostalgic fellow that I am, that sort of became what I snagged. I mean, now I have the same model acoustic guitar he plays, AND the same model mandolin, AND I have both of the electric guitars he owned when I was but wee. So now my kid gets the same musical experience I had, and the circle continues unbroken.

    Not to mention now when we go out gigging (assuming we ever get to again) we can basically pass as twins, playing the same instruments to boot!

    Now, does this mean I won't ever buy another? Nah. I have an extreme case of GAS, and I'm afraid it's terminal. And I DO still want an Ibanez F-Style--preferably in Dark Violin whatever they call it. But my go-to is always going to be that MR-150 Kiso-Suzuki bowlback.
    Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.-Geralt of Rivia

    Serve... Save... Slave... Slay... I've sins aplenty, aye. But regrets? Not so much.-Fray Myste

    It's the best and strongest steel that goes through the hottest fires.-Me

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  3. #77

    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    Hmmm... not very many seem bitten by MAS in the bowlback world...

  4. #78
    Bob Remington bobrem's Avatar
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    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    Tradition A oval (Korean, $40) => Kentucky F => Heiden F => Heiden F => Red Diamond F => Gilchrist A => Miller F (rosewood).

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  6. #79
    Chu Dat Frawg Eric C.'s Avatar
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    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    Indiana (I think? was $90) > Epiphone F5 (the one with the pick-up built onto the pickguard) > Morgan Monroe A Style mahogany.
    Those 3 are long gone.
    Current stable:
    Kentucky KM950
    Northfield F5S
    Kentucky 272
    Flatiron 1N

  7. #80

    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    Quote Originally Posted by Koko View Post
    Hmmm... not very many seem bitten by MAS in the bowlback world...
    I mean, when you start off with perfection... :D
    Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.-Geralt of Rivia

    Serve... Save... Slave... Slay... I've sins aplenty, aye. But regrets? Not so much.-Fray Myste

    It's the best and strongest steel that goes through the hottest fires.-Me

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    Cobalt 

  9. #81
    Registered User lucho's Avatar
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    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    I know I have > 50 plectrum instruments.... 7 of them mandolins.... and all was started while at college with a Kentucky Km-140 that sooner it was sold and traded for a Flatiron.... everything else is history.... so every saturday is the day I have to tune them and practice tinkering a bit in a few of them.... Beware when I change strings.... it takes time...MAS doesn`t go anywhere.... salu2 https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/album.php?albumid=70

  10. #82
    Registered User Bob Buckingham's Avatar
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    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    Too many decades but my first mandolin was a Lyon and Healy about 1973.

  11. #83

    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    "Too many decades" for me too but my first "good" mandolin was and still is my 1916 Gibson blackface F-2 that was upgraded to look like an F-4 with double flowerpot headstock inlay and back binding well before I acquired it in 1975. The bridge is a "Loar era" adjustable bridge. It is still in my stable and is now strung with D'Addario Flat Wound stainless steel strings. Lovely!!! For other sounds, my permanent stable is a 1956 F-12 re-voiced by Randy Wood and a 1992 Carlson signed A-5L. Toss in a couple of entry level specialty instruments like a Kentucky KM 340-S with a JJB pickup for the amplified acoustic sound and a Morgan Monroe tele-shaped electric mandolin. It's enough to keep me endlessly immersed in mandolins at the moment

    Len B.
    Clearwater, FL

  12. #84
    Gibson F5L Gibson A5L
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    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    From borrowed to unobtanium. R/
    I love hanging out with mandolin nerds . . . . . Thanks peeps ...

  13. #85
    Registered User Denis Kearns's Avatar
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    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    Have had chronic GAS for years, sometimes the associated IAS. My visits to the Cafe have caused a significant flare-up my MAS. My first guitar was a cheapo plywood import that someone left at my brother’s. He told me I could have it if I learned to play. I didn’t like the finish, so laboriously scrapped it off with a razor blade, then installed steel strings, so you can imagine the playability and tonal qualities of this instrument. It was, however, my entry into stringed instruments and basic guitar chords. Having no business sense, but with occasional “spending” money, I’ve purchased over the years a number of guitars and mandolins, a few saxophones, a clarinet or two, a few banjos (the first I traded for a sweet Regal mandola - model 2361), a couple of accordions, a stand-up bass ($35 when I was earning $2 per hour), a requiento, a charango, even a full-sized harp. Most have been serendipitous purchases and only a few sought after, but have definitely fell prey to the allure of online sources! I now have a Weber mandolin family and am kinda looking for a blackface mandola to join my A4 and K2 Gibsons. Click image for larger version. 

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ID:	201857 Have also looked longingly at the occasional blackface mandobass, but apparently still have some shreds of fiscal responsibility left. As a widower with fledged offspring, I now have less constraints, although my wife was pretty tolerant of my acquisitions (it helps to write a song for one’s partner). I am also fond of the Harmony and Regal instruments. I do need to thin the herd somewhat. Some of my more interesting acquisitions include a Steve Parks’ tenor, an OM that Phil Crump built for me, and a “Frankenmando” that I need to do a little surgery on. Collecting instruments is like having art you can play with! Below are photos of these last three. Click image for larger version. 

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  15. #86

    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    Liar 600>Kentucky KM1050>Northfield Big Mon

    Each has been been a noticeable step up

  16. #87

    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    Well, over 60 years of playing, I've owned a lot. To summarize -- my first beginner guitar in the mid 60's cost my parents $35, actually it was not THAT bad for the money! After a year my folks bought me an electric, a red Hagstrom, which was my guitar for 20 years, then it got stolen. I upgraded to a Gibson, then a Mosrite Ventures guitar, and after that too many to count. I stayed single well into middle-age, so I basically I could buy anything I wanted, before other things became a priority. At some point, the "collector" becomes the "dealer" and buying and selling became a way to fund my hobby, first noticing some of my instruments had become "vintage" and not merely "used!" Somewhere along that path, my attitude toward prices changed. I suddenly found with a little negotiation I became a wholesale buyer, only paying retail if it was something I really wanted. Part of this was after accumulating more than enough instruments to cover the basics (and then some!) which cooled my MAS. The advent of eBay fueled its return due to the fact that things once impossible to find locally, were suddenly available by mail at the click of a mouse! Then the dealer in me came alive and I found myself selling 4 or 5 instruments a week on eBay -- most sold quickly within a week, SOME sold in less than an hour, believe it or not, which I got a chuckle out of -- especially after working at "retail" music stores and seeing stuff hang on the wall for 6 months to a year, or longer. Again, I was able to accumulate more than I needed, which came in handy over the years as a "savings" account for lack of a better term. These days I still buy stuff, mostly vintage, but there hasn't been anything on my personal want list for years. YMMV.

  17. #88

    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    Quote Originally Posted by Jeff Mando View Post
    Well -- especially after working at "retail" music stores...
    I should add that working in a good music store 25-30 years ago really played a role in curbing my MAS. Fortunately for me, a lot of impossible to find instruments were still hanging on the wall for sale, at least impossible to find now outside of private collections and a handful of top shelf vintage dealers (whose inventories are mostly consignments...) Anyway, I got to "try" everything I wanted and quickly got educated on classic old instruments. It taught me that, sure, a 30's Martin is way better than a 70's Martin, just as a 58 Strat is oodles better than a made in Mexico strat -- but at what price? That was the question then, and that is the question now, it seems.

  18. #89
    Registered User Mark Marino's Avatar
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    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    Ex guitar player so I’d had some experience, but saw someone playing at a festival and thought “I should try that “. Started innocently but my first instrument was a 1916 Gibson A. Rang like a bell. Then I got a Newson A, bluegrass monster. Then had been flipping through Siminoff book on how to build a bluegrass mandolin for a few yeasts, decided to buy parts and build one. That turned into two, then tree, then five…. Now I gig with the ones I built exclusively. Been a very cool journey, here’s the most recent
    Click image for larger version. 

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    "If you hit a wrong note, then make it right by what you play afterwards." - Joe Pass

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  20. #90
    Registered User John Bertotti's Avatar
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    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    I just be the odd guy out my first was back in the very early 2000s. I don't remember exactly when. I bought a Vega bowl back from Jim Garber here. A few years later I ordered a Oval A from Old Wave. Still have both and have not added another. I do occasionally get the urge to add an F style but not so much so that I have done so yet. So I have only ever had two and have never moved either on. How odd is that considering I'm quickly approaching 60!
    My avatar is of my OldWave Oval A

    Creativity is just doing something wierd and finding out others like it.

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  22. #91

    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    2005 Morgan Monroe (I think?) > 2006 Micheal Kelly Dragonfly > 2007 Breedlove FF > 2017 Weber Gallatin > 2018 Gibson F5g > 2019 Heiden Artist F5

    Years are when purchased…not the year of the instrument
    Chris from Tucson
    2007 Heiden Artist F5 #F102
    1919 Gibson A3 #49762 (found on eBay for $15!!)
    2022 Austin Clark Octave #159
    1922 Gibson H1 Mandola #70063
    1972 Martin D-18 (modified by Bryan Kimsey)
    2024 Klos Carbon Fiber (on order)

  23. #92
    Registered User Eric Platt's Avatar
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    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    Update from post #63 -

    In the past 2 years have basically turned over everything except the A Jr. and Eastman octave. Last year found a used Peter Coombe flattop that made me rethink a lot about what I wanted in an instrument. It could have easily been the last one. Great tone, easy playing and loud enough for my bands.

    But then, ended up stumbling across a Brentrup Model 23. Very early. It was another eye opening experience. It's the narrowest neck I've played so far. And the tone is magical, but a different magic than the Coombe. It's been my constant player since getting it. Both bands I'm in like it. And the sound carries well when not using a microphone.

    Don't see any reason to look for something else at this point. Then again, said that about the Coombe and look what happened after that.

    An excuse to post a photo of it -
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    Brentrup Model 23, Boeh A5 #37, Gibson A Jr., Big Muddy M-11, Coombe Classical flattop, Strad-O-Lin
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  24. #93
    My Florida is scooped pheffernan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    I'm heartened to see that my list hasn't changed much since participating in this exercise four years ago, and I have managed to stick to the one mandolin in / one mandolin out policy (not so with mandolas).

    1998 Mid-Missouri M0 (sold to Dan)
    1984 Flatiron 1N (sold to Rex)
    2009 Redline Traveler (traded to Josh)
    2007 Gypsy Vagabond (sold)
    1924 Gibson A
    2005 Collings MT (sold to Richard)
    2013 Pava (sold to Jim)
    2005 National RM-1
    2007 Hester A5
    2009 Passernig A5
    2013 Silverangel A (sold to Catherine)
    2009 Stanley A5 (sold to Don)
    2013 Redline Traveler (sold to Dan)
    2015 Black A2-z
    2017 Poe Scout
    2011 Passernig F5 (sold to Tom)
    2019 Hogan F5
    1924 Gibson A Snakehead
    2005 National RM-1
    2007 Hester A5
    2009 Passernig A5
    2015 Black A2-z
    2010 Black GBOM
    2017 Poe Scout
    2014 Smart F-Style Mandola
    2018 Vessel TM5
    2019 Hogan F5

  25. #94
    Playing on the porch
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    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    I never meant to take the "Road To Mandolin." After I retired, I had come back to classical violin after a hiatus of many decades. I had a phenomenal teacher who helped me learn to play again. During a break in one of our lessons, I made mention of n old musical ambition. I had always wanted to play guitar, had bought several over the years, and was always, always terrible at it. I imagined aloud how cool it would be if there was an instrument that you could play like a guitar, but was smaller and tuned the same as a violin. My teacher suggested I might enjoy the mandolin. I had never touched a mandolin and knew nothing about them. I'd always pictured a mandolin to be something you carried to Renaissance Festivals while wearing a Jester's hat. I wear a cowboy hat. I had no idea they were tuned the same as a violin, had eight strings or were an important instrument in Blue Grass and many other genres. Or, how beautiful they could be. I went to a Guitar Center shortly thereafter, found a relatively inexpensive mandolin and discovered that in less than a minute, I was playing Bach. Even so, It didn't sing, it produced more of an unpleasant, metallic dink. Fun, but not sonically pretty. I decided to wait.

    In early 2017, I went to Fiddler's Green, which used to be located in the heart of Austin, with the singular goal of finding an entry level mandolin. I left there with my Eastman MD515, a very sweet way to start. And that is when MAS really took hold.

    Months later, I also bought a very cheap campfire mandolin at GC, just because I wanted to not take my good instrument into overly harsh conditions. I do live in Texas, which probably explains everything.

    When the pandemic locked us up, I put in even more hours of playing with my Eastman. I added "amateur mandolinist" to my email signature and I lurked for years in this Cafe forum learning as much as I could about the mandolin and the fascinating and engaging community. Of course, I began to hunt for my next MAS fix. I wanted to some day own a mandolin that could sound better than I ever expected to be. I wanted to know that if I didn't sound too good, it wasn't the instrument, but rather just me needing to practice more and play better. The Eastman is a really nice instrument, but the calling was stronger than my will.

    After the first vaccines came out, I checked out the local shop that produced some of the finest mandolins available. Although still a relative novice, the artists at Ellis Mandolins crafted a mandolin for me that was every bit as sweet as the finest violin I had ever played. Tom and Pava let my wife and I watch the creation happen, from the selection of woods to the final finish. I would not have known about Ellis if it were not for Fiddler's Green and the Mandolin Cafe. Thank you all.

    I truly believe the Ellis is my "forever" instrument, but I would not be surprised if I some day find another mandolin to just expand my tonal horizons. i keep reading about so many other wonderful instruments here in the Cafe and I still feel the MAS itch. We'll see what happens...
    ---
    2021 Ellis F5 Special #564 mandolin
    1928 Roth violin
    2016 Eastman MD515 mandolin
    1907 Foltz violin

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  27. #95
    Registered User John Bertotti's Avatar
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    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    Funny, I remember the first mandolin I saw was in an old Gene or Roy movie. One of the cow hands was strumming on it.
    My avatar is of my OldWave Oval A

    Creativity is just doing something wierd and finding out others like it.

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  29. #96
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    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    I had a cheap Kentucky mandolin about 8 years ago that I bought from Elderly Instruments for. about $150 or so. I didn't get much enjoyment out of playing it so I got rid of it. 6 years later I decided I wanted to try mandolin again and bought an Eastman 615 which was nice and I got bit by the mandolin bug. So I ended up selling that and getting a Northfield NF5sa and then adding a Northfield Big Mon with engleman top. I'm trying to figure out if I should add a Big Mon with an Adirondack top to that or not. My NF5 has an Adirondack top it just isn't a big mon. And so M.A.S. hits me like G.A.S. has hit me for the past 20 years.

  30. #97
    Registered User John Bertotti's Avatar
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    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    Getting bit off topic, when I was a kid I was happy to have one of something. I didn't want or need more. Baseball cards and such excluded of course. Instruments, other items people tend to get gas over now, didn't happen a lot back then. What's changed? I tend to blame media and internet forums. Consume consume, or on forums its the exposure to all the different models of something people share. Not a bad thing but the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence. Maybe that realization and saving until I could get an excellent instrument the first time is how I have managed to keep my instrument gas at bay for so long.
    My avatar is of my OldWave Oval A

    Creativity is just doing something wierd and finding out others like it.

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  32. #98
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    My MAS progression has been just one mandolin after another.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
    funny....

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  34. #99

    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    I had a nascent MAS when I first hit ebay and acquired some Flatiron, Mid Missouri and Peterson instruments. But I quickly acquired a mndln/violin double case, which spawned more fiddle playing - subsequently my mndln playing quickly waned. Then I got into oud - which is the most expressive plectrum instrument, and still about the only plectrum instrument I play these days. But I play a lot of 5ths-tuned fiddle and cello, and get out the CBOMs once in a blue moon for something different..

    I've got GAS up the wazoo though - with ouds, cellos, violins, guitars, harps, free reeds, woodwinds...an interest in too many styles of music to keep up..

  35. #100
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    Default Re: Describe your MAS progression

    I just added an Electric Oud to the 6 mandos, 6 mandolas, 3 octaves and 2 mandocellos, does that count?
    Stormy Morning Orchestra

    My YouTube Channel

    "Mean Old Timer, He's got grey hair, Mean Old Timer he just don't care
    Got no compassion, thinks its a sin
    All he does is sit around an play the Mandolin"

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