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Thread: Types of Mandolin Collections

  1. #76
    Full Grown and Cussin' brunello97's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Quote Originally Posted by catmandu2 View Post
    Ya i know. But the gleichton/club/draw style is great for certain styles/genres
    Right you are. Once you dig into the Club system, you can really understand why folks thought it was a good idea to begin with.

    I play PA as well, but really dig the diatonic boxes for their limitations as well as their opportunities.
    You've really got to think your way around your instrument and a tune which is one of the attractions for me, which I sense you share as well.
    It's both instinctive and intellectual, which I also really enjoy.

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  3. #77

    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Apologies for hijacking yall. It's a kind of craziness.

    *I guess I should confess I actually do possess an extensive collection of avant jazz/art music on cd. (Prbly the weirdest thing about me i suppose)
    Last edited by catmandu2; Dec-14-2020 at 10:44pm.

  4. #78
    Registered User Marcus CA's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Quote Originally Posted by allenhopkins View Post
    Reviewing this discussion after my earlier post, I reached the hypothesis that a "collection" is when you have an organizing principle that you apply before purchasing something, while an "accumulation" is when you go back afterwards and try to determine why you purchased something.

    In my case, I often just decided I liked a mandolin -- or other instrument -- or thought, "I could use that when (or if) I play this or that type of music." Sometimes, it was just "Gee, I don't have one of those." I mean, how else did I end up with three mandocelli?

    So I wonder if I had approached buying instruments as a collector, rather than an accumulator, what the difference would have been in what I bought and what I kept. Not that I regret buying anything -- well, maybe the Univox electric 12-string, or the Johnson tricone resonator guitar -- but I still search in vain for that "organizing principle."
    I think that you've hit on the key distinction in your phrase "organizing principle." I agree that a collection does have an organizing principle, whereas an accumulation doesn't. You collect things to go with the others that you already have. A collection is something that you might show off to demonstrate how successfully you have followed your organizing principle. An accumulation, though, can be lots of different musical tools that you have. When I buy an instrument, which my wife fortunately has never discouraged, I have already determined why I am going to buy it --- which is to expand my musical tool kit. (I occasionally regret that later on, but rarely.) So, maybe a collection is based on organized expansion, and an accumulation is based on unorganized expansion. In any case, both are based on significant financial stability and resources, which involve gratitude and appreciation.

    How did I end up with two mandocelli? I loved my acoustic one, and I found a really cheap solid-body electric one.

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  6. #79

    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Right, once you make that distinction, you're collecting. And there are all levels, all "kinds" ... can get very serious. Folks are often highly devoted to their collections.

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    Registered User Cary Fagan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Something I've done as a substitute, or a way of controlling my own mandolin desires, is to collect photographs of mandolin players. such as this one.
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    Cary Fagan

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  9. #81
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Quote Originally Posted by Cary Fagan View Post
    Something I've done as a substitute, or a way of controlling my own mandolin desires, is to collect photographs of mandolin players. such as this one.
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    I have some wonderful photos as well. Check out this thread for a lot of antique photos.

    And here is another collection of mine: String Packages
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  11. #82
    Registered User Cary Fagan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Don't know how I missed that threat, Jim!
    Cary Fagan

  12. #83
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Quote Originally Posted by allenhopkins View Post
    Reviewing this discussion after my earlier post, I reached the hypothesis that a "collection" is when you have an organizing principle that you apply before purchasing something, while an "accumulation" is when you go back afterwards and try to determine why you purchased something.
    Sort of... I am however convinced that no one starts a collection from ground zero. There has to be some attraction to acquiring it in the first place. And the distinction in my mind between collecting vs. accumulating is in the mind of the person assembling that grouping.

    I also think that objects that have some utility such as musical instruments or tools vs. artworks fall into different categories. A musician may want an addition because of what sounds or effects he/she wants or an artisan may want a set of tools because that set may make a particular task easier. However, when someone does have ten 1942 Martin guitars I think you can absolutely call that a collection by the above definition.

    FWIW, from Merriam Webster: collection: something collected especially an accumulation of objects gathered for study, comparison, or exhibition or as a hobby.

    A few years ago I had a wonderful conversation with a friend who is a prominent banjo collector. We traded stories for over an hour about how we acquired a number of interesting instruments. We came to the conclusion that in some odd way we were actually collecting the stories as well as the actual instruments. That, to me, is another aspect of having a collection at least of vintage instruments which sometimes require hunting down things to buy at a reasonable price. It is a hunter-gatherer process.
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  14. #84
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Quote Originally Posted by Cary Fagan View Post
    Don't know how I missed that threat, Jim!
    I know... it is very threatening.

    You should post some of your collection there to revive that wonderful thread.

    Also, Scott posted some old mandolin postcards in a slideshow on this site. I am not sure where those are at this moment.
    Jim

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  15. #85
    Registered User Cary Fagan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Well, your knowledge is threatening, Jim.

    And I too, relish the stories of how I came to one instrument or another. if only they weren't so boring to most other humans. the cat finds them fascinating, however.
    Cary Fagan

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    Joe B mandopops's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Years ago, when my son was into baseball cards, we met a man who’s goal was to get a card of one player on each team every year. He wanted to follow the uniforms. I thought that was an interesting concept. I got a couple of Gibson Ovals, red, black, & brown. No natural (blonde). So every time I see an A2Z come up for sale, I feel I can justify the purchase. It gets mighty tempting.
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  18. #87
    Barn Cat Mandolins Bob Clark's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Quote Originally Posted by Cary Fagan View Post
    Well, your knowledge is threatening, Jim.

    And I too, relish the stories of how I came to one instrument or another. if only they weren't so boring to most other humans. the cat finds them fascinating, however.
    Anything the cat finds fascinating is worth doing!
    Purr more, hiss less. Barn Cat Mandolins Photo Album

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    A quote and a story:

    Taylor Swift was asked how many guitars she has. She quipped that she didn’t know, and it was her experience that those who know how many guitars they have do not have that many.


    Then this true story. I related it somewhere in one of these threads I cannot find.

    I held a jam session at my house and one of the new attendees to the jam noticed I had a number of mandolins. At the time I think it was nine, and now it is up to 13 if you include emandos. He asked me, sarcastically, “who needs that many mandolins?”

    Maybe a year or so later the jam was at his house and I noticed he had at least 15 if not 20 guitars. I made some snarky comment about his having so many guitars and reminded him of his earlier comment, and he said, “yea, but seriously, mandolins? Who needs that many mandolins?”
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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  21. #89
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    I've been told I have "obsessions." I have 4 bowlbacks, my Collings, my Pava, and my Weber. I am considering adding a 1920s Gibson A-style, and a Weber F-style Bitterroot (to match my Weber A-style Bitterroot.) The ones I am considering adding are the only mandos I would add to my "collection." All of the mandolins sound different, that's why I have them.

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  23. #90
    two t's and one hyphen fatt-dad's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    In 2004, when we moved into our new house. I carried 40 instrument cases from house A to house B. Haha, friends were helping, but they already knew I was in deep.

    Other than wall hangers, I'm now with four guitars (1930 L-1, 1997 Braz 914, OM-28A and a GA3-12) and four mandolins - a pancake, a redwood/walnut, a spruce/maple and my A3. (Oh, and the Eastman OM.)

    Sure, I'd want a Gil or Nugget or a Dude. It'd be cool. Not sure I'm heading towards one; however.

    I'm staying home and entertaining the birds and neighbors!

    f-d
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  24. #91
    Registered User foldedpath's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    I held a jam session at my house and one of the new attendees to the jam noticed I had a number of mandolins. At the time I think it was nine, and now it is up to 13 if you include emandos. He asked me, sarcastically, “who needs that many mandolins?”

    Maybe a year or so later the jam was at his house and I noticed he had at least 15 if not 20 guitars. I made some snarky comment about his having so many guitars and reminded him of his earlier comment, and he said, “yea, but seriously, mandolins? Who needs that many mandolins?”
    Yeah, but guitar players usually get a pass on that, due to tuning differences and a variety of playing methods that don't exist in the mandolin world. I once visited a guitar player who had a dozen or so very expensive, high-end acoustic guitars lined up against the wall. He was a New Age fingerstyle noodler and each one was in a different tuning.

    That was part of the justification for my one collecting spree of mid-1930's fiddle edge/metalbody roundneck Dobros. Gotta have 'em in different tunings for slide playing!

    Mandolins occupy a much narrower niche. Leaving aside the larger body types, we've got Gibson types, bowl backs, flat tops, resonators, and that's about it. Almost all are tuned in GDAE because mandolin players seldom depart from that. They're all played with a flatpick because other methods like fingerstyle aren't very popular or functional.

    Compare that to the three acoustic guitars I've kept, all different in tuning and playing style. One is nylon string in standard tuning played exclusively fingerstyle, one is steel string in Drop-D tuning played with a flatpick (and only occasionally fingerstyle) and the other is the one old Dobro I've kept that's played with a bottleneck slide and fingerpicks in open E tuning. For a while I also had a baritone acoustic guitar, and another acoustic kept in "Nashville" tuning (an octave higher on the bottom 3 strings.

    So I think guitar players should get at least a partial pass on the "too many instruments" thing. There are a lot more variants than mandolin, due to tunings and playing methods. A dozen very similar Gibson-style mandolins in someone's house would seem much more odd to me.

  25. #92

    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Yep, that's why I never considered it "collecting." Add 12-strings, flamencos, archtops, a few student loaners - not to mention pedal steels, lap steels, and other electrics - to the essentials list, and you're easily at 10 or 20 or...

  26. #93
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    It all depends on what genre I'm currently interested in. I've always been a Monroe fan, so I got the best F5 copy I could find. When I got interested in Italian music, I bought the best sounding Italian bowl back I could find. Jug Band music? I wound up with a great Gibson MB4 (mandolin banjo). Now I'm searching for the perfect tenor banjo for Irish music. I recently sold my mandola because I never played it. I wasn't playing any styles that really called for a mandola, like perhaps classical or mandolin orchestra repertoire. It's all very genre specific with me.

  27. #94
    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Quote Originally Posted by foldedpath View Post
    ...Mandolins occupy a much narrower niche. Leaving aside the larger body types, we've got Gibson types, bowl backs, flat tops, resonators, and that's about it. Almost all are tuned in GDAE because mandolin players seldom depart from that...
    Yeah, but that's the rub. Once you've developed interest in the mandolin, the next steps are mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello, and finally the mando-bass. Plus there are piccolo mandolins -- "smaller body types." I'd been playing mandolin about ten years when I acquired my first mandola, a c.1895 Washburn bowl-back that I still have. That led to buying the Sobell (which I also still have), better suited for playing in the Celtic band I was in; that band also led to getting a Flatiron octave. Mandocello came later: first a Gibson K-1, then a new Eastman, then a Waldo bowl-back -- yeah, still have all of 'em.

    Finally, a Larson brothers Stahl mando-bass shows up at Bernunzio's, and the "family" is pretty nearly complete. Now my most-played instrument is probably another Larson-made Stahl, a mandola. And, along the way, I somehow picked up a Weber Gallatin "sopranolin," pretty much for the hell of it, although it's a beautifully-made instrument, with a fully-carved scroll, not the "hook scroll" the website used to show.

    I guess that guitarists have similar options -- tenor guitars, acoustic bass guitars, besides the usual gamut of steel string, nylon string, 12-string, resonator (well, both biscuit bridge and spider bridge), and of course the different sizes and body shapes. But there are just as many options available to mandolin players who want to "go big" and sample other voices and tonal ranges.

    I have quite a few guitars, but not in comparison to the variety of mandolin-family instruments I've accumulated. And I think that the different sizes in the mandolin family have contributed to my emphasis on those instruments.
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  28. #95

    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Well, if you include guitar-family instruments - the equivalent of mandolin-family dola, cbom, etc - then we're talking about a huge inventory.

    The real distinction is about different tunings and styles - the guitar has such widely diverse applications, even fretless guitars..

    when we use a lot of different tunings, you really do need many instruments to avoid prolific string breakage, etc. Many of those diverse guitar styles entail different tunings, or fundamentally different types of instruments.

    *my mndln arsenal is very similar to my sax quiver - sopr through bari. One each. (Mouthpieces are a different story, however )
    Last edited by catmandu2; Dec-21-2020 at 2:18pm.

  29. #96

    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    But i dig 5ths tuning too! In fact I've always wanted to mention here that a hardanger fdl sounds kinda like a mndln ... fwiw. My nails are too long to play proper but ill show you what I mean, you can pick it...

    Last edited by catmandu2; Dec-21-2020 at 9:16pm.

  30. #97
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Quote Originally Posted by foldedpath View Post
    So I think guitar players should get at least a partial pass on the "too many instruments" thing. There are a lot more variants than mandolin, due to tunings and playing methods. A dozen very similar Gibson-style mandolins in someone's house would seem much more odd to me.
    Ummm... nah.

    I think it is a matter of perspective. And in what we put our treasure.

    I know a lower brass enthusiast, a player, who has a stunning, absolutely insane collection of instruments, all kinds of stuff, a lot of which I recognized as trombone, or euphonium, tuba, and variants, but a lot of his collection consists of civil war brass instruments and modern reproductions of same, two and three belled euphoniums, sliding french horn type thingies, huge great long bass trombones that point up, or backwards; just endless variety. And endless examples of the same thing in slightly different sizes.

    Just google Civil War Brass Instruments. And this collector has things not even pictured there. He claims he is writing a book on the history and variety of lower brass. But there is a creeping feeling of something off about his collection. Some obsession. Like those in the 70s who collected those troll dolls, identical in every way but size.



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    Until I met him I could not imagine such a collection. How much is there to brass instruments anyway. But I need only look inside myself to know the answer.
    Last edited by JeffD; Dec-21-2020 at 11:25pm.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
    funny....

  31. #98
    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Hmmm... Never quite sure where "upstate NY" actually is, but I did have some contact with a brass quartet from Buffalo that did Civil-War-era music on restored period instruments -- rear-facing horns, "teardrop" cornets, etc. The tuba player had found his instrument in a farmer's front yard, filled with dirt to use as a planter, and painted red! Took him several years to restore it, but it looked and sounded fine when I heard them play.

    Don't know if they have anything to do with your brass-collecting friend, but I appreciate what any musician or collector has to go through, to find antique instruments, and restore them to playability.
    Allen Hopkins
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  32. #99
    Registered User Randi Gormley's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Odd that nobody mentioned 'price point' for collections. you know, the best you can get for, say, under $600.

    I like the idea that a collection is something you deliberately set out to do, not just what falls in your lap. I "collect" old novels in the manner that there are specific authors whose work I purchase whenever I see them because I like them and want to own all they've written (good and bad). And when I find a new author I like, then I set out to gather all those together. So my private library, while a conglomeration of items, contains half a dozen collections. My mandolins -- not so much. They appealed to me for the sound and feel and the price point. And my main playing instrument because it's the best I own. Not a collection but not a real accumulation either. More a conglomeration, I'd say.
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  33. #100
    Registered User Sue Rieter's Avatar
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    Default Re: Types of Mandolin Collections

    Quote Originally Posted by Randi Gormley View Post
    Odd that nobody mentioned 'price point' for collections. you know, the best you can get for, say, under $600.

    I like the idea that a collection is something you deliberately set out to do, not just what falls in your lap. I "collect" old novels in the manner that there are specific authors whose work I purchase whenever I see them because I like them and want to own all they've written (good and bad). And when I find a new author I like, then I set out to gather all those together. So my private library, while a conglomeration of items, contains half a dozen collections. My mandolins -- not so much. They appealed to me for the sound and feel and the price point. And my main playing instrument because it's the best I own. Not a collection but not a real accumulation either. More a conglomeration, I'd say.
    Well, I have four, all different, and the most expensive was under $700 (not counting the case). So it's not a big grouping. In addition pheffernan says that my next one will cost more than the rest combined. That would break the sequence for sure.

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