Types of Mandolin Collections

[kurth83]

I fit solidly in the second group originally mentioned, I try to get one decent instrument of each type, mandolin (f and oval), mandola, and OM, and electric versions of each. I have a few redundancies that should go, but I am too lazy to sell them.

[Sue Rieter]

I fit solidly in the second group originally mentioned, I try to get one decent instrument of each type, mandolin (f and oval), mandola, and OM, and electric versions of each. I have a few redundancies that should go, but I am too lazy to sell them.

Is it truly laziness, or a hidden, deep-seated reluctance?

[grassrootphilosopher]

This is a great thread Tony!

Sometimes it´s not a question, that you "want" to collect... Sometimes out of necessity, out of curiosity, out of a change of ability an accumulation of instruments takes place.

I do believe some would call me a collector. My family certainly sees a certain number of instruments that has live in our household.

I can´t bear parting with my first guitar (just yet). I still have my first good guitar and a good guitar it is. My dear departed mother helped me to get my one and only really old guitar. Boy howdy, it´s one of the best guitars I have ever played (including pre war and war time D-28s and D-18s, pre war J-200s [that are incredibly special guitars], L-00 Gibsons, Larsons etc.) Out of sheer greed (there you have it) I bought one of the best modern guitars (37 D-28 recreation), because I was lusting for the rosewood tone and had the funds back then. I bought my first mandolin because I wanted to expand musically. I did with a 30ies Strad-O-Lin. It´s all the mandolin many would need. It punches way above its paygrade. Again because of sheer greed/lust I bought my pricey mandolin. It´s a bluegrass machine that does everything you´d need and it certainly gives a pre WWII Gibson a nice chase. Well I wanted to record so I bought a double bass. And to complete it out I bought a banjo. Both bass and banjo are the best that I was able to afford at the time. Doing my homework I bought a great 50ies non plywood bass with a very nice sound. My banjo - that was not too expensive - is one of the best non vintage banjos (I heard vintage banjo afficionados say; they own 1piece flange flathead Gibson Granadas etc.).

Well... the instruments found me. I do play them to the best of my ability. I play the music that I like on them (mostly bluegrass, some country, some jazz, some singer songwriter stuff). That´s what the instruments are for and that´s what I like them for.

So it´s not really collecting, right?

[Kevin Winn]

My collection is limited to two:

One F and one A...

[Sheila Lagrand]

I have one mandolin--an Eastman MD 305. Tomorrow I will also have an Eastman MDO 305, an octave. Those two instruments comprise my collection.

I can spend 15 minutes selecting a polish color at the nail salon--a commitment measured in weeks. I can't imagine how long it would take me to decide which instrument to play if I had several to choose from.

[Mandobart]

I want variety in my instruments. I also like kind of obscure instruments. I also like buying from small (one person) shops.

That's how I ended up with a custom F5, F4, 10 string mandola, custom F4 octave mandolin, custom F4 10 string mandocello, old banjolin, old resonator mandolin and Mandobird VIII.

I have a few more guitars and fiddles as well, no two alike.

I'm definitely in the second camp. I see no point in having 5 "different" F5's.

[ajh]

We do it......because we can.

There is no justification. Especially if you are single.

[mandroid]

I had to buy them, to find out what it was like, since no one was willing to lend me theirs..

[BeanJean]

My collection is basic. My good mandolin is an Eastman 815 oval hole f style. Then I wanted a campfire/airplane mando and I made a saga kit. I enjoyed the process of making it and decided to make a flat top. That led to a Don Kawalek kit. Then a Music Makers kit. I love the moment when I finally hear each mandos voice. I’ve also made up kits for two banjos and a ukulele. I don’t know if anyone else has this form of MAS but I’m having fun and play them all.

[Tim Logan]

My collection is basic. My good mandolin is an Eastman 815 oval hole f style. Then I wanted a campfire/airplane mando and I made a saga kit. I enjoyed the process of making it and decided to make a flat top. That led to a Don Kawalek kit. Then a Music Makers kit. I love the moment when I finally hear each mandos voice. I’ve also made up kits for two banjos and a ukulele. I don’t know if anyone else has this form of MAS but I’m having fun and play them all.

Very, very cool!!!! How did you like the Music Maker kit????

[BeanJean]

Very, very cool!!!! How did you like the Music Maker kit????

The music makers kit was excellent. It has the best instructions of all the kits I’ve made. And the organization of how things were packed was sequential with the instructions. If I could figure out how to post a photo I’d show you how it came out.

[Tim Logan]

The music makers kit was excellent. It has the best instructions of all the kits I’ve made. And the organization of how things were packed was sequential with the instructions. If I could figure out how to post a photo I’d show you how it came out.

Well I know I am treading off the main thread, but thank you for the thumbs up on these kits. The website is great - and that hurdy gurdy kit - wow!

[Marcus CA]

Don't consider myself a "collector," more of an "accumulator." I have tried to [1] be diverse in my purchases, rather than obtaining several similar but subtly different mandolins [B] gather instruments that met current musical needs -- a mandola and an octave mandolin when I played in a Celtic band, an F-5 when I was playing more bluegrass, bowl-backs for when I do 19th-century historical programs, etc. [III] find instruments with reputations, pedigrees or unusual characteristics ...

That's a really good distinction, although I think that buying "instruments with reputations [or] pedigrees" borders on collecting. Everything else that you mention seems like the musical equivalent of expanding the box of crayons. Starting out, that box of 8 colors works well, but the more you draw, the more you realize what you could do with that box of 16, and then ...

I think that when you're an "accumulator," you are accumulating experience along with the instruments. You grow musically as you see what you can do with that F4 after extensively playing your F5, or taking on octave mandolin after playing mandolin and guitar, or playing a jazz-voiced mandolin after playing a bluegrass-voiced mandolin. You don't get rid of the royal blue crayon when you get sky blue, but you start seeing what you can do with each color.

[Jim Garber]

I am not a collector. <snip> I don't see any additions or changes in the future (really!).

Well I know I am treading off the main thread, but thank you for the thumbs up on these kits. The website is great - and that hurdy gurdy kit - wow!

Hmmmmmmm...

[Tim Logan]

Hmmmmmmm...

I'll be quiet, LOL!

[JeffD]

I just today sold one of my mandolins. My John Jorgenson Paris Swing. I sold it to a friend of mine who will enjoy it immensely.

I so rarely sell any of my mandolins. I think this is the third sale in more than ten times that in years. And yea, I do feel the loss.

No I am not going to cry, don't try and hug me, arright? But there are feelings involved in parting with objects you have desired and acquired.

[Murphy Slaw]

I've only got 1.

It's a very small collection.

[T.D.Nydn]

What I've learned from pretty much a professional collector I once knew,,1. A collection is a minimum of 3 items.2 items does not make a collection. 2, a true collection is specific.just because you own 19 mandolins,does not make it a mandolin collection,it's just a bunch of mandolins,,I collect only 1950''s Gibson A-50 mandolins, for example,being very specific makes a legitimate collection..

[Sue Rieter]

What I've learned from pretty much a professional collector I once knew,,1. A collection is a minimum of 3 items.2 items does not make a collection. 2, a true collection is specific.just because you own 19 mandolins,does not make it a mandolin collection,it's just a bunch of mandolins,,I collect only 1950''s Gibson A-50 mandolins, for example,being very specific makes a legitimate collection..

I'm guessing then, that if it's not a collection, then its a herd?

[Bill McCall]

What I've learned from pretty much a professional collector I once knew,,1. A collection is a minimum of 3 items.2 items does not make a collection. 2, a true collection is specific.just because you own 19 mandolins,does not make it a mandolin collection,it's just a bunch of mandolins,,I collect only 1950''s Gibson A-50 mandolins, for example,being very specific makes a legitimate collection..

To me that’s just a narcissist with OCD and a bit of arrogance thrown in.

[Jim Garber]

What I've learned from pretty much a professional collector I once knew,,1. A collection is a minimum of 3 items.2 items does not make a collection. 2, a true collection is specific.just because you own 19 mandolins,does not make it a mandolin collection,it's just a bunch of mandolins,,I collect only 1950''s Gibson A-50 mandolins, for example,being very specific makes a legitimate collection..

One person's opinionated definition. A "professional collector" is what? IMHO someone who makes money collecting is a dealer. Otherwise how is that a professional?

And that person's definition is a load of BS. I happen to know a number of upper-echelon collectors of various instruments. Yes, there are some who concentrate on specific eras of makers of instruments but there are others who have a more universalist approach.

In that person's definition the musical instrument section of the Metropolitan Museum is not a collection? They have a large assortment of various instruments.

BTW a collection of only 1950s A-50 mandolins sounds like someone who only wants the objects and really doesn't play them. How truly different would that be? The alternative "non-collection" mentioned above—having 19 different mandolins—sound so much more interesting to me as a collection. I would visit that guy to play those mandolins and discuss the differences, but not the guy with all the A-50s.

[Jim Garber]

No I am not going to cry, don't try and hug me, arright? But there are feelings involved in parting with objects you have desired and acquired.

Of course, we love our instruments and they bring such joy. OTOH if I find I am not playing one and someone I know especially a friend would play and appreciate it it is a good thing. And I suppose you can visit with that mandolin any time?

[Mandobar]

What I've learned from pretty much a professional collector I once knew,,1. A collection is a minimum of 3 items.2 items does not make a collection. 2, a true collection is specific.just because you own 19 mandolins,does not make it a mandolin collection,it's just a bunch of mandolins,,I collect only 1950''s Gibson A-50 mandolins, for example,being very specific makes a legitimate collection..

I have a bunch of mandolins; Heiden, Collings, Girouard, Ellis, Campanella, Kimble, Smart, Brock, Northfield..... So, that's not a legitimate collection?

[pheffernan]

Over the years of being a Cafe member, I have noticed that there seems to be two different approaches to collecting. One buying different versions of a type of mandolin. For example, six different F5 grass mandolins. An Ellis F5, Collings F5, Gibson F5 MM are just examples. Another collection would be having examples of different types of mandolins, an F5, a Lyon and Healy type, an A4, an octave mandolin, mandola might be examples of this.

I seem to be getting dangerously close to threading the needle between these two approaches, with two of every kind: two A5’s, two carved ovals, etc.

I am well aware of my tendency to collect, extending back to my childhood packs of baseball cards and through my adolescent boxes of comic books. And that tendency has certainly followed me into adulthood and my fascination with mandolins.

It started with my very first flattop, a Mid-Missouri M0, and before I knew it, I also owned a Flatiron 1N, Redline Traveler, and Gypsy Vagabond. I was keenly interested in the different shapes and materials employed, with their corresponding effects on tone. In the process, I figured out what I wanted in a flattop and ultimately sold off the other four to afford it.

It continued when I made the leap to archtops, with a Collings MT, and within 18 months, I owned another five (Pava, Hester, Passernig, Silverangel, and Stanley). From them, I learned about the full range of tone, playability, and aesthetics available, and more importantly, my preferences for each. So when the time came for me to move house, I sold off the others so as to focus on what I call my favorite (Passernig) and my best (Hester).

I know the latter will be familiar to you, Tony, as you are one of the few other owners of one of Gail’s few mandolins. I was just writing in another thread about the supply and demand of mandolins, and it seems to me that Hester is one of those rare instances where demand would be higher if supply were greater, since more pickers would get to experience and hanker after one. My A5 is one of Gail’s earliest pair of Griffith Loar Tributes, and it is just an amazing instrument to play, to hear, and to admire. I love the very idea of it, a modern builder paying homage to the instruments that inspire her:



That instrument has led to my subsequent pursuit of instruments from modern builders who share a similar reverence, such as this A2-z with Virzi from Mike Black:



I later worked with Andy Poe to develop one of his Scout pancakes modeled after the Gibson Alrite:



In the past year, I was fortunate to stumble into a snakehead H2 mandola from Gary Vessel, the instrument that would have resulted had Gibson built their tenor lutes instead with a mandola neck:



And just recently — so recent that I haven’t had a chance to post about it or even update my signature — I tracked down a rare F5 from Adrian Minarovic, our own Hogo who produced the Loar blueprints now sold through Elderly:



I’m hoping that my collection is complete . . . unless you’re ready to part with that F4!

[foldedpath]

What I've learned from pretty much a professional collector I once knew,,1. A collection is a minimum of 3 items.2 items does not make a collection. 2, a true collection is specific.just because you own 19 mandolins,does not make it a mandolin collection,it's just a bunch of mandolins,,I collect only 1950''s Gibson A-50 mandolins, for example,being very specific makes a legitimate collection..

That's an interesting point. Maybe just semantics, but I think there's some truth to it. In that respect, I guess there was just one point in my musical life where I had a collection. It was when I was into acoustic bottleneck slide guitar, among other guitar obsessions. I developed an interest in 1930's roundneck Dobros, specifically the "fiddle edge" metal body type, named for the crimped edge joining the top and sides.

I just loved the sound and the look of those. At one point I had three of them, two in nickel-plated brass and one in painted steel. Also a wood body roundneck Dobro from the same period. There was a musical incentive in having more than one, because I kept them in different open tunings, but it was really a collector mindset that drove me to get them.

Anyway, I eventually sold off all but the painted steel 1936-ish Dobro that I keep around just for noodling slide tunes every now and then. My current set of instruments is driven entirely by my interest in Irish/Scottish trad. I have one each -- mandolin, octave mandolin, steel string guitar, nylon string guitar, and one keyed "Irish flute" that's been getting most of my attention lately.

I'm 100% happy with my stringed instruments and really don't need anything else. I'd like to start a small collection of keyed "Irish" flutes just for fun, including some vintage ones from the 1800's, but can't afford it. This single one will have to do.