A Gibson Believe It Or Not !

[f5loar]

Just messing around with some Gibson F5s tonight and happened upon the strange fact that a 1990's Gibson Monroe Model will fit in a 2000's MM F5 original factory case BUT a 2000's Gibson MM will not fit into a 90's Monroe Model original case. Not sure how I should take this little known fact but sometimes the fact is stranger than the truth.
Answer to the mystery is a pretty simple fact. A 1920's MM F5 will not fit in the 1990's Monroe model case either! The truth to the mystery lies in Bozeman, MT !

[greg_tsam]

If only we had the time and mandolin collection to figure out all these mysteries. I wanna be you!

[Red_Label]

If only we had the time and mandolin collection to figure out all these mysteries. I wanna be you!

True dat!


My old college classical guitar instructor (taught at MSU-Bozeman in the mid-80s) has run the Gibson Montana plant for years now. It's been years since I've seen him, but I ought to look him up again one of these days and get a tour of the Gibson MT facility.

[mandroid]

Ripley needs to be informed..

[Bernie Daniel]

That is pretty interesting -- did you by chance make some comparative measurements of the two mandolins? Is it a "length thing" and if so is the difference the fact the 1920 and 2000 MMs were dovetailed necks and the WSM model is a "bolt on"?

[UsuallyPickin]

You obviously had too many mandolin "out" at the same time to discover this salient factoid. No doubt ...Only Bozeman knows for sure .......I look forward to the posting of your next multi mandolin discovery. R/

[John McCoy]

There may be a case to be made here.

[f5loar]

I didn't loose sleep over this freak discovery but tonight I "found" a nice, clean, near mint, all original 1992 F5L (also made in MT) and it fit fine in the Monroe case. The regular F5L did not come with such a fancy case as the Monroe model, but being as it did fit leans towards the fact they are indeed the same in size and fit as far as length, neck angle, body,scroll and point size. Now for those 198 of us (I know 2 guys that have 2 each) that do have this limited edition Monroe model with the special Loar replica case (even though Monroe's '23 Loar came in a shape case) they do fit snug. Little room for slack in there. A real 20's Loar case in contrast has all the room for movement you could ask for. When the newer MM and older MM go into this Monroe case the body fits snug but the peghead will not go down in the case. Rough measurements show the peghead top point goes about 3/8 to the right of the center. The peghead top scroll (the one Monroe broke off) is about 3/8 inch too long to fit down into the case. What does this all mean to the non-luthier consumers of Gibson F5 mandolins? Again the truth can only come out of Bozeman, MT and those guys ain't talking about the past but I am having second thoughts about their claim that this new begining of the F5L in 1978 was patterned after the great F5s of the 20's is not quite as close as they boosted in the adverisments of the day. Here is a quote from a 1986 full page color ad in Fret's magazine. " Now, in recognition of his (Loar) masterful achievements, Gibson is going back to the original drawings, patterns, and templates to produce a reissue of his(Loar) greatest work, the F-5 mandolin. The new instrument, named the F-5L - "L" in honor of its creator- is crafted with the same techniques and to the same set of specifications as those used to produce its historic counterpart. Only age will be the difference between Gibson's F-5L of today and Gibson's F-5 of 60 years ago."

[John McCoy]

My doctor tells me that we all get shorter with age. Maybe that applies to mandolin cases, too???

[Bernie Daniel]

I didn't loose sleep over this freak discovery but tonight I "found" a nice, clean, near mint, all original 1992 F5L (also made in MT) and it fit fine in the Monroe case. The regular F5L did not come with such a fancy case as the Monroe model, but being as it did fit leans towards the fact they are indeed the same in size and fit as far as length, neck angle, body,scroll and point size. Now for those 198 of us (I know 2 guys that have 2 each) that do have this limited edition Monroe model with the special Loar replica case (even though Monroe's '23 Loar came in a shape case) they do fit snug. Little room for slack in there. A real 20's Loar case in contrast has all the room for movement you could ask for. When the newer MM and older MM go into this Monroe case the body fits snug but the peghead will not go down in the case. Rough measurements show the peghead top point goes about 3/8 to the right of the center. The peghead top scroll (the one Monroe broke off) is about 3/8 inch too long to fit down into the case. What does this all mean to the non-luthier consumers of Gibson F5 mandolins? Again the truth can only come out of Bozeman, MT and those guys ain't talking about the past but I am having second thoughts about their claim that this new begining of the F5L in 1978 was patterned after the great F5s of the 20's is not quite as close as they boosted in the adverisments of the day. Here is a quote from a 1986 full page color ad in Fret's magazine. " Now, in recognition of his (Loar) masterful achievements, Gibson is going back to the original drawings, patterns, and templates to produce a reissue of his(Loar) greatest work, the F-5 mandolin. The new instrument, named the F-5L - "L" in honor of its creator- is crafted with the same techniques and to the same set of specifications as those used to produce its historic counterpart. Only age will be the difference between Gibson's F-5L of today and Gibson's F-5 of 60 years ago."

For sure the dozen or so H-5 mandolas made at Montana in the early 1990's were different from the Loar H-5's in many ways -- but they were not intentionally built to a different set of plans.

[mando-tech]

I didn't loose sleep over this freak discovery but tonight I "found" a nice, clean, near mint, all original 1992 F5L (also made in MT) and it fit fine in the Monroe case. The regular F5L did not come with such a fancy case as the Monroe model, but being as it did fit leans towards the fact they are indeed the same in size and fit as far as length, neck angle, body,scroll and point size. Now for those 198 of us (I know 2 guys that have 2 each) that do have this limited edition Monroe model with the special Loar replica case (even though Monroe's '23 Loar came in a shape case) they do fit snug. Little room for slack in there. A real 20's Loar case in contrast has all the room for movement you could ask for. When the newer MM and older MM go into this Monroe case the body fits snug but the peghead will not go down in the case. Rough measurements show the peghead top point goes about 3/8 to the right of the center. The peghead top scroll (the one Monroe broke off) is about 3/8 inch too long to fit down into the case. What does this all mean to the non-luthier consumers of Gibson F5 mandolins? Again the truth can only come out of Bozeman, MT and those guys ain't talking about the past but I am having second thoughts about their claim that this new begining of the F5L in 1978 was patterned after the great F5s of the 20's is not quite as close as they boosted in the adverisments of the day. Here is a quote from a 1986 full page color ad in Fret's magazine. " Now, in recognition of his (Loar) masterful achievements, Gibson is going back to the original drawings, patterns, and templates to produce a reissue of his(Loar) greatest work, the F-5 mandolin. The new instrument, named the F-5L - "L" in honor of its creator- is crafted with the same techniques and to the same set of specifications as those used to produce its historic counterpart. Only age will be the difference between Gibson's F-5L of today and Gibson's F-5 of 60 years ago."

...Surely the 'L' in F5L does NOT stand for 'Loar',...it stands for LAQUER !...as opposed to VARNISH !

[MikeEdgerton]

...Surely the 'L' in F5L does NOT stand for 'Loar',...it stands for LAQUER !...as opposed to VARNISH !

Actually you're wrong. You keep saying that even though Roger Siminoff has refuted it and he was there when it was named. Thanks for driving by.

Once again, the article regarding this is here.

[DataNick]

...Surely the 'L' in F5L does NOT stand for 'Loar',...it stands for LAQUER !...as opposed to VARNISH !

Why do you keep posting this in several threads?

It has been pointed out before by several including Mike the moderator that Roger Siminoff who championed and spearheaded the F5L project at Gibson said this : I offered the idea that we could call this "new" instrument the "F-5L" - the "L" in honor of Master Lloyd Loar.

The F-5L Mandolin A turning point in the history of Gibson's acoustic string instruments

Why don't you read the article, then call Roger if you have any questions...he's pretty accessible...


I see that Mike beat me to my response....

[Jim Hilburn]

Someone posted a picture of 2 MM's side by side and they were clearly 2 different body shapes.

[Big Joe]

Actually, not much of a mystery. The Montana made mandolins were good mandolins, but not very accurate to the original Loar specs. One of Charlie Derrington complaints about the Monroe model was that it was not accurate to the Loar specs in much of any way except general appearance. One of his purposes when he took over mandolins was to correct anything non Loar as much as he could, which included body dimensions. The only real resemblance in Montana made and Nashville made mandolins is general appearance. That doesn't make the Montana mandolins any less than high quality, just different. Anyway, the cases were changed as well and Charlie used his Loar for the case dimensions.