Re: Stop Me Before I 'Dola 'Gain!
Well, you need a carved-top mandola with f-holes, and you need a bowl-back. I love "pancakes" too, but I don't wanta buy an IHOP... Five Flatties seems sufficient.
I have 'way too many instruments, but one of the rationalizations I lean on, is that they're almost all different. I do have a couple quite similar acoustic steel-string guitars, and a couple resonator "bluegrass style" banjos, but otherwise my accumulation is heterogenous. Recently I've actually weeded out some of the "redundant," trading one of two Martin D guitars, and one of two Martin soprano ukuleles, on instruments for which I had no equivalents (like a Stahl mando-bass).
So my mandola lineup now is one Sobell "long scale," one Stahl made by the Larsons, and one Washburn bowl-back, pre-1900. Also a 5-course fanned-fret mandolin/dola hybrid, made by a local luthier. I traded my Eastman MDA-615 'cause I seldom had it out of its case.
We all like what we like, so assembling the world's largest collection of Flatiron mandolas, may not be my ambition, but then again, why not?
Allen Hopkins
Gibsn: '54 F5 3pt F2 A-N Custm K1 m'cello
Natl Triolian Dobro mando
Victoria b-back Merrill alumnm b-back
H-O mandolinetto
Stradolin Vega banjolin
Sobell'dola Washburn b-back'dola
Eastmn: 615'dola 805 m'cello
Flatiron 3K OM
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