Hi folks,
I'm a long-time guitar player but a rookie to mandolin. In the new year I'd like to have a mandolin in my armory so I went out for a hunt. Not quite a lot of mandolins in the local stores (well they are actually guitar shops so I don't blame them for it). In my budget range it seems the only choice is an old stock Epiphone mm-50. While I do appreciate its f-5 resembling style, the reddish finish was rejected by my eyes.
So the shop owner says he has access to a batch of D'Angelico mandolins, not in the shop though but he showed me some pics on the phone. They look quite good, but $349 for an D'Angelico? What kind of gimmick is this?
It's so suspicious. I searched the whole Internet but found no trace of this model. Although I do learnt from the D'Angelico website, they have some inexpensive guitars and ukuleles in the same price range, so it's actually possible they have these entry-level mandolins too, just for some reason they are not listed anywhere.
On the other hand, if I'm going to make some counterfeit mandolins, why do I invent a model? Why do I want to make a counterfeit D'Angelico? Or, why do I want to make counterfeit mandolins at all - given that I could sell much more quickly and make much more money by making guitars with the same resources. So I tend to believe these are genuine.
My best guess is, they did produce a small batch of them, maybe by a China OEM, but never bothered to promote them and probably have already cut the production due to low demand.
Anyways, they seem fairly priced, look stunning, and have a pickup! What else can you ask for? So I pulled the trigger and asked the shop owner to bring me one. We'll see what's going on in days!
Happy new year!
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