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Thread: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

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    Default Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    I recently sold a mandolin on consignment through Music Emporium, and as part of that process I visited the websites of many of the main dealers of quality instruments (and the Classifieds section of the Café) to evaluate current pricing. I was quite surprised at the general absence of new instruments from makers other than Northfield, Eastman, and Kentucky. There was an occasional Collings (the 12th Fret has a collection of Collings; otherwise they were less common) and a few individual instruments from other makers (Weber, Pava, Hinde…), but even the enviable collection at Carter’s consists almost entirely of used instruments. I’d been out of the mandolin market for a while (MAS can be conquered, at least temporarily) and not paying attention, so perhaps this is not news but it made me curious as to the cause(s). Is the market so strong that lower volume builders are producing only custom orders, so the shops don’t get them (or they only last a few days if they do), are conditions so bleak that mandolins aren’t being built, are some of the better known builders “aging out” and slowing down production, or …?

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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    From what I'm seeing, demand is extremely high. New and used instruments from top makers usually sell within days. Even instruments in the over $10k category typically sell within a week.

    Check out these articles...

    https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/c...d-Demand-Story

    https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/c...d-Demand-Story

  3. #3

    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    The Acoustic Shoppe has 4 different new from Steve Hinde. A5, F5, Mandola, and Piccolo.
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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    I was lucky to acquire a Campanella mandolin used from another MCer. Joe sells either direct but occasionally one or two of his instruments are sold through The Music Emporium and those get bought up quickly. Similar for other desirable makers like Kimble who I think no longer takes custom orders at least the last I heard. Most other small shop instruments are sold through the maker. Ellis mandolins often show up in shops and get snapped up quickly.
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  5. #5

    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Pandemic black hole..

  6. #6

    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    I took my Kimble two-point to TME a few weeks back, when I went down to try out the new Girouard G5 they were getting. They sold the Kimble while I was driving home, and they had three people in line as backup buyers, just in case someone was crazy enough to return it.

    But not all dealers seem to be selling at the same pace. I was looking at a few shop websites this morning, and their sales seem to be lagging. And to be honest, if those Hindes were being sold in a different shop, they would be gone gone gone.
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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandobar View Post
    I took my Kimble two-point to TME a few weeks back, when I went down to try out the new Girouard G5 they were getting.
    I am living vicariously through you… did you buy the Girouard?
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  8. #8

    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Garber View Post
    I am living vicariously through you… did you buy the Girouard?
    Yes, Max had told me it would be about 3 years before he'd be making another one. The Kimble was nice, but I am not a flat fretboard person and I have a Campanella 2 pointer.
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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Quote Originally Posted by morgan View Post
    I recently sold a mandolin on consignment through Music Emporium, and as part of that process I visited the websites of many of the main dealers of quality instruments (and the Classifieds section of the Café) to evaluate current pricing. I was quite surprised at the general absence of new instruments from makers other than Northfield, Eastman, and Kentucky. There was an occasional Collings (the 12th Fret has a collection of Collings; otherwise they were less common) and a few individual instruments from other makers (Weber, Pava, Hinde…), but even the enviable collection at Carter’s consists almost entirely of used instruments. I’d been out of the mandolin market for a while (MAS can be conquered, at least temporarily) and not paying attention, so perhaps this is not news but it made me curious as to the cause(s). Is the market so strong that lower volume builders are producing only custom orders, so the shops don’t get them (or they only last a few days if they do), are conditions so bleak that mandolins aren’t being built, are some of the better known builders “aging out” and slowing down production, or …?
    The plague caused a shortage of instruments and the supply still hasn't caught up. I picked up a Northfield 2 months ago but I was checking Northfields website every day and pulled the trigger right away. Someone here on Cafe said that Northfield air ships their stuff so maybe not impacted by the port delays. My other hobby is cycling and the supply of bikes and parts has still not recovered

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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandobar View Post
    Yes, Max had told me it would be about 3 years before he'd be making another one. The Kimble was nice, but I am not a flat fretboard person and I have a Campanella 2 pointer.
    I am generally a flat person especially on top of my head. And as you know I have a Campanella pointless model which I still love.
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  13. #11

    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Garber View Post
    I am generally a flat person especially on top of my head. And as you know I have a Campanella pointless model which I still love.
    Lol. I see what you did there.
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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Quote Originally Posted by morgan View Post
    I recently sold a mandolin on consignment through Music Emporium, and as part of that process I visited the websites of many of the main dealers of quality instruments (and the Classifieds section of the Café) to evaluate current pricing. I was quite surprised at the general absence of new instruments from makers other than Northfield, Eastman, and Kentucky. There was an occasional Collings (the 12th Fret has a collection of Collings; otherwise they were less common) and a few individual instruments from other makers (Weber, Pava, Hinde…), but even the enviable collection at Carter’s consists almost entirely of used instruments. I’d been out of the mandolin market for a while (MAS can be conquered, at least temporarily) and not paying attention, so perhaps this is not news but it made me curious as to the cause(s). Is the market so strong that lower volume builders are producing only custom orders, so the shops don’t get them (or they only last a few days if they do), are conditions so bleak that mandolins aren’t being built, are some of the better known builders “aging out” and slowing down production, or …?
    The answer for Collings was right at your fingertips. Go to The Music Emporium site and count the number of Collings Mandolins for sale. Now go over to the guitar side of the site and count Collings acoustics and electrics and you'll see very clearly what's going on. Some don't like hearing it but it's guitars that keep the lights on. And Weber, who shut their mandolin production down temporarily to meet guitar demand, was also a victim of a terrible double whammy Collings got hit by: trying to employ skilled workers in regions where housing and general living prices are growing way faster than wages. The economies in Bend, Oregon and Austin, Texas are out of control and when the pandemic landed on top of that it caused real economic problems for them both. Collings is half the size they were pre-pandemic. 18-24 months ago it was nothing to see 25-35 new Collings Mandolins or more in stock at Music Emporium year-round. Those days are over.

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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Quote Originally Posted by DaveGinNJ View Post
    The plague caused a shortage of instruments and the supply still hasn't caught up. I picked up a Northfield 2 months ago but I was checking Northfields website every day and pulled the trigger right away. Someone here on Cafe said that Northfield air ships their stuff so maybe not impacted by the port delays. My other hobby is cycling and the supply of bikes and parts has still not recovered
    I think a lot of it has to do with the modern concept of Just In Time Delivery, where you hold very little inventory, and expect regular deliveries of stock, the more expensive an item, the fewer you hold in stock. A distributor that sells 12 instruments a year that cost $10K each, may have it set up to get one a month. Now you toss in a 6 month or 8 month shipping delay, and you get a massive back order situation, to the point that the distributor stops taking orders.

    Now local shops that hand make instruments, are often lone gunmen, that may have a few instruments in production at any one time, and may take 6 months to a year from raw wood to finished instrument. I think a lot of them, could expand to semi-custom manufacturing. For example you take a block of maple, use a CNC router to cut out the pieces you need, and do 95% of the carving. Instead of taking a month to carve a Mandolin top, you take a week, you still use your steam bending machine for the sides, you still use your hand gluing jib to finish the body assembly, maybe you pawn off some of the work to an apprentice.... You still hand tune the body through carving, but for stuff like drilling the tuner holes, the machine has already done that,

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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Do you think we're reaching equilibrium or do you suspect it will get worse?

    Right now it seems like we're still spoiled for choice. If I wanted to buy today I would have great choices at every level. Eastman and Kentucky are pretty hard to beat for the price. If I want to move up from there I could buy, today, an MT of various trim and upgrades, many NF5S, Model M, Hinde, Girouard Ensemble, A5 Special fully bound, MT2 with various upgrades, Weber A or F style. All brand new.

    So is this supply and demand or should there be more mandolins? And do you folks think that we will get to a time when we won't have these choices?
    Last edited by Chuck Leyda; Jan-01-2022 at 12:40pm.
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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Quote Originally Posted by PaulS View Post
    I think a lot of it has to do with the modern concept of Just In Time Delivery, where you hold very little inventory, and expect regular deliveries of stock, the more expensive an item, the fewer you hold in stock. A distributor that sells 12 instruments a year that cost $10K each, may have it set up to get one a month. Now you toss in a 6 month or 8 month shipping delay, and you get a massive back order situation, to the point that the distributor stops taking orders.

    Now local shops that hand make instruments, are often lone gunmen, that may have a few instruments in production at any one time, and may take 6 months to a year from raw wood to finished instrument. I think a lot of them, could expand to semi-custom manufacturing. For example you take a block of maple, use a CNC router to cut out the pieces you need, and do 95% of the carving. Instead of taking a month to carve a Mandolin top, you take a week, you still use your steam bending machine for the sides, you still use your hand gluing jib to finish the body assembly, maybe you pawn off some of the work to an apprentice.... You still hand tune the body through carving, but for stuff like drilling the tuner holes, the machine has already done that,
    People keep saying this. The formal use of JIT is not very common or used as widely as one would think, and is not really used in building musical instruments, especially mandolins. There's a lot of risk associated with implementing this process. And these types of operational manufacturing techniques are used mostly in large scale operations. Think General Motors. It's expensive to manage the process, and it requires a huge investment in software.

    The real issue is that there are so few builders now, and why make ten $3k mandolins when you can make ten $8k mandolins? And think about how many builders who have retired or are slowing down and not taking orders, or the companies that have stopped building. Then think about how many new builders have come onto the scene and what their output has been. It's not rocket science, and it's certainly not about computer chips or car parts.

    As for overseas building, the big disruption seems to be the lack of labor available. People need to want to come to work, or be allowed to go to work in order to make things. Other countries are still ordering regular lockdowns. Things are going to ebb and flow for a while.
    "your posts ... very VERY opinionated ...basing your opinion/recommendations ... pot calling ...kettle... black...sarcasm...comment ...unwarranted...unnecessary...."

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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandobar View Post
    People keep saying this. The formal use of JIT is not very common or used as widely as one would think, and is not really used in building musical instruments, especially mandolins. There's a lot of risk associated with implementing this process. And these types of operational manufacturing techniques are used mostly in large scale operations. Think General Motors. It's expensive to manage the process, and it requires a huge investment in software.

    The real issue is that there are so few builders now, and why make ten $3k mandolins when you can make ten $8k mandolins? And think about how many builders who have retired or are slowing down and not taking orders, or the companies that have stopped building. Then think about how many new builders have come onto the scene and what their output has been. It's not rocket science, and it's certainly not about computer chips or car parts.

    As for overseas building, the big disruption seems to be the lack of labor available. People need to want to come to work, or be allowed to go to work in order to make things. Other countries are still ordering regular lockdowns. Things are going to ebb and flow for a while.
    We are seeing what happens when you depend on a single manufacturing point, for a global market. Your manufacturing in the far East, then shipping half way across the planet, you have multiple points of failure, and the reason we have this comes down to money. When the virus hit China and shutdown factories, it created the first failure. Once that was resolved, you had problems in shipping several times the shipping capacity all at once, they they ran out of containers, then the virus hit the receiving ports. At some point it will all get resolved.....

    The big question in all this, if we take a $100 mandolin and have it properly set up, with good strings, and get it played in, will it still sound like a $100 mandolin..... This is my biggest queastion, because I have a $100 Mandolin?

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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    I split this in half, because I wanted to keep the reply from getting too long....

    One of the problems in smaller shops, is that many operate as if it's still 1725, they use the same woods and the same glues and the same finishes as were used in 1725, and the same technology, because it's tradition to do it that way. We have had mechanical tuning machines for over 200 years, and the violin sticks with it's idiotic wooden peg in a wooden hole. Fortunately the Mandolin being a more modern instrument doesn't do this..... Could you make a good Mandolin or even a Violin using a CNC machine to do most of the carving, most likely, it would sound better then pressed wood and could be made cheaper then completely hand carved. This could also be a good way to meet demand domestically, rather then needing to depend on cheap inported junk from overseas.....

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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Quote Originally Posted by PaulS View Post
    ……. Could you make a good Mandolin or even a Violin using a CNC machine to do most of the carving, most likely, it would sound better then pressed wood and could be made cheaper then completely hand carved. This could also be a good way to meet demand domestically, rather then needing to depend on cheap inported junk from overseas.....
    It might serve you well to do significantly more research on the current state of mandolin building. CNC is used widely, to differing degrees, among builders. Collings has been a leader on that front for sometime. Even with CNC it takes skilled craftsmen to make high quality instruments.

    As to your other question, $100 gets you a mandolin shaped object. You’re much better served saving your money until you can afford something in the Eastman or Kentucky line. Or maybe even a decent flattop depending on what kind of music you play. A set up is always recommended but there’s no “playing in” of a cheap plywood mandolin.

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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Well, a good set up may improve the ability of a $100 mandolin to sound good, but only because it might make it easier to play and/or eliminate unwanted buzzes or rattles. It will not improve the tone of the wood itself.

    The question folks have to ask is whether or not it is worth it to put $50 to $100+ worth of work into a $100 instrument, or whether it is more practical to put the money into savings for a better instrument.

    If it is possible to adjust the instrument for only $25, it might be worth it. Often, it is not.

  27. #20

    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandobar View Post
    People keep saying this. The formal use of JIT is not very common or used as widely as one would think, and is not really used in building musical instruments, especially mandolins. There's a lot of risk associated with implementing this process. And these types of operational manufacturing techniques are used mostly in large scale operations. Think General Motors. It's expensive to manage the process, and it requires a huge investment in software.

    The real issue is that there are so few builders now, and why make ten $3k mandolins when you can make ten $8k mandolins? And think about how many builders who have retired or are slowing down and not taking orders, or the companies that have stopped building. Then think about how many new builders have come onto the scene and what their output has been. It's not rocket science, and it's certainly not about computer chips or car parts.

    As for overseas building, the big disruption seems to be the lack of labor available. People need to want to come to work, or be allowed to go to work in order to make things. Other countries are still ordering regular lockdowns. Things are going to ebb and flow for a while.
    Agree with everything except the JIT portion. In the electronics world, where I work, it’s the norm. From million dollar medical machines to planes to cars to televisions, it’s been that way for years and the weak links have now been exposed. Acoustic instruments - makes no sense since most any builder has aged wood stock and none are operating on an assembly line.
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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Quote Originally Posted by ColdBeerGoCubs View Post
    Agree with everything except the JIT portion. In the electronics world, where I work, it’s the norm. From million dollar medical machines to planes to cars to televisions, it’s been that way for years and the weak links have now been exposed. Acoustic instruments - makes no sense since most any builder has aged wood stock and none are operating on an assembly line.
    Then your company is using SAS or some other software to manage this process, along with a very expensive accounting/financial software package that is interfaced with it. The costs of running this type of environment are prohibitive for even a builder like Collings. There's a level of sophistication that needs to be adopted for JIT, and to be honest, most companies do a pretty poor job of managing it, regardless of their net earnings. JIT is a great tool, if you set it up right, and if you manage it. It's an investment, and some people think it just runs on autopilot. It does not. Companies have a tendency to run too lean and adopt too much risk in order to save a few dollars. It's bitten them in the the butt now.

    However, JIT has become the media buzzword and the scapegoat for everyone's manufacturing woes. But labor shortages are a huge part of the picture for a lot of industries. As Scott said, Collings has shrunken to about a third of its staff: last I heard from 150 to around 50 people. I believe that Martin had a lot of their workers who were on the verge of retirement do just that, retire. The Chinese are having the same issues.

    So, if you see something you want to buy, buy it. There's not a lot of negotiations going on, because there's generally a line behind you waiting to buy it if you don't. I also saw Collings new price list. It's not for the faint of heart.
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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandobar View Post
    Then your company is using SAS or some other software to manage this process, along with a very expensive accounting/financial software package that is interfaced with it. The costs of running this type of environment are prohibitive for even a builder like Collings. There's a level of sophistication that needs to be adopted for JIT, and to be honest, most companies do a pretty poor job of managing it, regardless of their net earnings. JIT is a great tool, if you set it up right, and if you manage it. It's an investment, and some people think it just runs on autopilot. It does not. Companies have a tendency to run too lean and adopt too much risk in order to save a few dollars. It's bitten them in the the butt now.

    However, JIT has become the media buzzword and the scapegoat for everyone's manufacturing woes. But labor shortages are a huge part of the picture for a lot of industries. As Scott said, Collings has shrunken to about a third of its staff: last I heard from 150 to around 50 people. I believe that Martin had a lot of their workers who were on the verge of retirement do just that, retire. The Chinese are having the same issues.

    So, if you see something you want to buy, buy it. There's not a lot of negotiations going on, because there's generally a line behind you waiting to buy it if you don't. I also saw Collings new price list. It's not for the faint of heart.
    JIT for those that depend on it, needs a well oiled and functioning global supply chain. It was working quite well, until COVID-19 hit and all went to crap....

    Let's say you have a small Mandolin shop, you make 3 instruments a year, and repair a bunch of older ones. You go through a dozen sets of tuners each year, you don't hold a lot of inventory, when you get down to 2 sets in the box, you order another box of 6 from your supplier. It's been this way since you started in the 1980's, back then you called the sales guy "Mike" who then took your order over the phone, and sent them by UPS the next day, you would have them in a week. Mike retired years ago, now you go to the website, and order them. These tuners come from a company in say Seoul, South Korea.

    Now we need to go back a few months, to when your distributor ordered a new pallet of tuners from the factory. they had a run of COVID at the factory, and shut down for six weeks, then they made and shipped the tuners, this went by truck to the port at Inchon, where a logistics carrier would normally put it in a container with about 40 pallets of other stuff, destined for the USA. The port now got shut down, due to COVID for 4 weeks, then they ran out of containers, and had to wait for 8 more weeks for more containers, it finally got loaded, but there is a backlog of stuff and the container sat at the port for 9 more weeks waiting for the backlog to clear. Finally the 2 week journey by ship, only to get to the port of LA, where a shortage of truck drivers, meant the container is still sitting on the dock, waiting to go to the logisitics company be broken down, it will be another 10 weeks before pallet of tuners arrives at the distributor.

    So the tuners you ordered 5 months ago, and normally take a week to come, will be 7 1/2 months late, meanwhile you used your last set on a repair a month ago, and you have a couple of instruments that will be finished this week, except you don't have tuners..... That means you will not get paid for those instruments, and your line-of-credit is starting to look like a Mortgage.....

    It's more then a labour problem, it's a cascade failure of the global supply chain, this would not happen if the distributor was a manufacturer, making the tuners domestically, because even if you had the factory shut down for 6 weeks due to COVID, you would have had them months ago.

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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Quote Originally Posted by PaulS View Post
    JIT for those that depend on it, needs a well oiled and functioning global supply chain. It was working quite well, until COVID-19 hit and all went to crap....

    Let's say you have a small Mandolin shop, you make 3 instruments a year, and repair a bunch of older ones. You go through a dozen sets of tuners each year, you don't hold a lot of inventory, when you get down to 2 sets in the box, you order another box of 6 from your supplier. It's been this way since you started in the 1980's, back then you called the sales guy "Mike" who then took your order over the phone, and sent them by UPS the next day, you would have them in a week. Mike retired years ago, now you go to the website, and order them. These tuners come from a company in say Seoul, South Korea.

    Now we need to go back a few months, to when your distributor ordered a new pallet of tuners from the factory. they had a run of COVID at the factory, and shut down for six weeks, then they made and shipped the tuners, this went by truck to the port at Inchon, where a logistics carrier would normally put it in a container with about 40 pallets of other stuff, destined for the USA. The port now got shut down, due to COVID for 4 weeks, then they ran out of containers, and had to wait for 8 more weeks for more containers, it finally got loaded, but there is a backlog of stuff and the container sat at the port for 9 more weeks waiting for the backlog to clear. Finally the 2 week journey by ship, only to get to the port of LA, where a shortage of truck drivers, meant the container is still sitting on the dock, waiting to go to the logisitics company be broken down, it will be another 10 weeks before pallet of tuners arrives at the distributor.

    So the tuners you ordered 5 months ago, and normally take a week to come, will be 7 1/2 months late, meanwhile you used your last set on a repair a month ago, and you have a couple of instruments that will be finished this week, except you don't have tuners..... That means you will not get paid for those instruments, and your line-of-credit is starting to look like a Mortgage.....

    It's more then a labour problem, it's a cascade failure of the global supply chain, this would not happen if the distributor was a manufacturer, making the tuners domestically, because even if you had the factory shut down for 6 weeks due to COVID, you would have had them months ago.
    I don't disagree with a lot of what you're saying about JIT in general, but I'm not sure it really applies here. The lower priced instruments produced oversees like The Loar, Eastman, Kentucky, etc. (which are more likely to manufacture at a scale where JIT makes sense) are still pretty much available. The OP says as much. It's the mid-range and high end stuff that's no longer sitting on shelves. A lot of those builders are domestic (US based) and do employ CNC to reduce labor time, but they are still very limited in what they can produce. I haven't really seen parts like tuners become hard to find, but maybe a luthier can chime in on whether or not that's been issue. For the shops that have multiple employees like Collings, I'm sure they had some down time due to restrictions in 2020, and likely had some employee exits that further reduced their capacity. But still... It seems to me that at least on the mid to high end market most makers are still producing about what they can and the demand has just increased so stuff sells as soon as it ships. Used market is hot too!

    I'd blame increased demand (working from home, stimulus checks, low interest rates, FOMO, perhaps a few more investment buyers) at the mid to high end of the market more than reduced supply.

  32. #24
    Registered User Lucas's Avatar
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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Quote Originally Posted by morgan View Post
    I recently sold a mandolin on consignment through Music Emporium, and as part of that process I visited the websites of many of the main dealers of quality instruments (and the Classifieds section of the Café) to evaluate current pricing. I was quite surprised at the general absence of new instruments from makers other than Northfield, Eastman, and Kentucky. There was an occasional Collings (the 12th Fret has a collection of Collings; otherwise they were less common) and a few individual instruments from other makers (Weber, Pava, Hinde…), but even the enviable collection at Carter’s consists almost entirely of used instruments. I’d been out of the mandolin market for a while (MAS can be conquered, at least temporarily) and not paying attention, so perhaps this is not news but it made me curious as to the cause(s). Is the market so strong that lower volume builders are producing only custom orders, so the shops don’t get them (or they only last a few days if they do), are conditions so bleak that mandolins aren’t being built, are some of the better known builders “aging out” and slowing down production, or …?
    We just went through the holiday season. Even in a normal non-covid year, inventories in stores would be depleted by Christmas. Ask any musical instrument retailer and that's what they'll tell you.

  33. #25
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    Default Re: Where are all the (new) mandolins?

    Quote Originally Posted by Chuck Leyda View Post
    Do you think we're reaching equilibrium or do you suspect it will get worse?

    Right now it seems like we're still spoiled for choice. If I wanted to buy today I would have great choices at every level.
    Back in the 90s, I remember thinking that I'd just wait out the high-end mandolin boom until I could afford to buy. "Surely there aren't enough serious mandolin buyers out there to support this pace of production. I'll just wait for the bubble to burst and..."

    Didn't work out for me. That 'Dude' is still as relatively unaffordable for me as it was back then.
    Barry

    2020 Northfield 4th Gen #14
    Pavel Sucek F-5 w/Skip Kelly top
    1996 BellMaster F-5 (Carl Cates)
    A bunch of fiddles and a couple D-28s

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