on loars:

[Darryl Wolfe]

Darryl:

I do not consider you a "so called expert" - I consider you an expert. I also don't think I have ever seen you respond that you could not be fooled. Granted, it would take something real unusual to do it!

I have been fooled twice. Once in 1967 and once about 10 years ago. The first instrument was a Bob Givens and the second was a Randy Wood

However, in both cases I was "disarmed" by the person handing me the mandolin. In a sense I was set up in that there was zero reason to suspect a copy. In the first case, Tut Taylor hand me a mandolin and says "Look at this Loar I just got, it's sweet". I had not accumulated the knowlege I now have back then.

In the second case, Randy Wood set me up by handing me a mandolin and saying "Look at this Loar I just refinished". It had all original parts, original case, and a peghead overlay off of a Loar era F4. There was no reason not to believe at least for a few minutes until things started looking fishy. Then Randy got a big belly laugh over it.

Moral to the story, do not let your guard down and do not assume. It also helps if you can spot a fake '69 Z-28 Camaro from 100 yards away too.

[f5loar]

Like Darryl I've been fooled twice at different times by the same luthier whom I shall not name. In each case they were exact copies of certain Loars. But also in each case I was not able to actually put my hands on it for closer inspection. And on the opposite side of this saga, I've fooled hundreds into thinking mine is NOT a Loar. It's a safety net when out in public. I believe the only true expert on Loars was Loar and the chosen few at Gibson that actually built them and they are not telling anymore. There are several strange things that happened those few years the Loars were made so all you can do now is speculate upon the history of what you do know.

[Links]

Darryl & Tom's knowledge base would certainly be a lot more complete now than when they were fooled (if only temoprarily). Of course the knowledge base of anyone trying to fake one would now be more complete. As I stated earlier, to build a fake that could possibly fool everyone, I think you would have to have someone like Daryl and Tom on the "team" to assist in the project. I think the bottom line is that to build a fake of this type, you would first have to enlist a very top of the line builder, who was also quite devious (I don't know of any), along with several experts, unless of course it were done as an experiment to prove a point (of which I don't know what that point would be).

[300win]

Dennis had a Shue for sure. Bob made up 2 with The Gibson in head and Dennis got the pick of the 2 and I got the one he didn't pick. Dennis must not have kept it long as he still plays his old 50's F5. I lost mine in a divorce.
I think what you got were A5s with the Shue name in them vs. us getting the The Gibson ones. I guess ours were the prototype. If you can pick up there with Rick and Kenneth no need to come pick with me. You are way out of my league. You just well get on the next bus with Skaggs or McCoury if you are holding tight with those guys. There probably are more fakes then there are real but there are only a few really good fakes.
Gruhn almost bought one back in the 60's. He was smart enough to get a 2nd opinion and I think even a 3rd before the deal didn't go down. That that same fake has been passed around as the real deal many times since then.
But it's pretty easy to tell, it's got a 1921 date on it.

Tom I think you are right on the Shue's. I believe that Gwen's was the first he made with his name in the headstock, and mine was the second. I remember Bob asking me what I wanted there, it was me that came up with the coiled snake inlay, and I told him he was the one building it and it should have his name on it. I wonder where that mandolin is now ? As I said it was the only good mandolin I ever had until I got my Gibsons. As far as my picking, in the group I mentioned that was getting together, my buddies are some pretty extroidnary pickers also, one of them is like Kenneth or Rick good enough to play with anyone. I'm afraid that I don't have the speed anymore to play in a pro band. I've come to the point that if I can't pick it clean and with good tone on fast ones I just hang on, no breaks. I still love to try though, but my speed has diminished over the past 4-5 years. Heck not unles it is one that was written fast, Bluegrass don't have to be fast to have the drive and pop to it as you well know. Some Bluegrass groups do some of the traditional songs way too fast in my opinion, one that comes to mind is "Setting on top of the World", you hear alot of bands picking that one about 90 mph, and you can get more drive in it playing like Mr. Monroe did, after all it is a blues song. But differant strokes for differant folks.