Mandolin & Mandolin Family

This exceptional and effortlessly easy-to-play mandolin, made by Rolfe Gerhardt South Thomaston, ME, is similar in appearance to his Phoenix NeoClassical in that it has neither top nor back binding and utilizes (to extremely good effect) Thomastic Enfield flatwound strings which are made in Vienna, Austria.  It has the two-part adjustable bridge in which the bridge base is made from “Timeless Timbre” or “Old Wood” or maybe “Sinker Maple” – wood that was submerged in an extremely deep river under tremendous pressure for over a hundred years, or so says the legend.

Weber makes every carved family model in every voicing – mandolin, mandola, octave mandolin and mandocello.  We commend them for their versatility and, as well, for the extremely high quality of their design and workmanship.   This has a standard 17” scale length, a polished ebony headplate that bears the stylized “Weber” Victorian era typeface logo and a complicated Celtic knot thereunder – both in ivoroid.

The Collings MF5 is a fully appointed F-model with a carved seasoned Red spruce top and premium maple back and sides. With its superb tone, elegant stylings and unmatched playability, the MF5 is sure to please the most discerning eyes and ears.

Solid carved spruce top with traditional high-gloss nitro-cellulose sunburst finish, Solid carved highly flamed maple back and sides, Bound, rosewood fingerboard with Saga's new distinctive fingerboard extension design

You get: a solid carved spruce top with traditional high-gloss nitro-cellulose sunburst finish; solid carved flamed maple back and sides’ A-5 style body; maple neck with 15th-fret neck joint; bound, rosewood fingerboard with Saga's new distinctive fingerboard extension design; traditional snakehead peghead shape; classic mother-of-pearl peghead inlays; high-quality, deluxe tuning machines with replaceable buttons; nickel-plated hardware; adjustable truss rod; adjustable compensated rosewood bridge; multi-ply binding on top and back, and, lest we forget, it is shop-adjusted by actual human beings with tools.

While workers at the C F Martin Guitar Company in Nazareth, PA were toiling away at their benches producing good quality A-style mandolins in the 1950s, the folks at Favilla in New York City sat back and unabashedly copied the Martin oval soundhole, flat back, “bent” top style nearly verbatim.   

Our Discount Price is $8,245.00 and Our Cash Discount Price is $7,995.00.

Weber describes this mandola as follows:  "Many players love the longer scale length of a mandola. The different sound of the 1/5th lower (than the mandolin) tuning opens new creative avenues. The maple back and sides, spruce top, our bracing pattern and the D-Soundhole, combine to produce the volume and roundness that celtic players (in particular) look for."  

The teardrop shape of the American OF Mandolin offers much more than you would expect from its simple design.  The O style creates a boomy, deep range that speaks with clarity and authority in any situation you find yourself in.  Composed of Sitka Spruce for the top and Figured Big Leaf Maple for the back and sides, the OF has tone bar bracing which further complements the bold projection.  Breedlove mandolins are said to be easy to play with a radiused fingerboard and oversize frets that allow for extreme comfort.  The finish on this OF is a sumptuous satin, both beautiful to the eyes and to the hand.

The Trinity College Celtic Mandolin is a brand new design for those who prefer the flat top and back mandolin. This type of mandolin has traditionally been used for Celtic, Blues, Old-Timey, Brazilian music, and various other styles. The goal of the designers at Trinity College was to create the highest quality instrument of its type--an instrument suitable for any professional artist--but priced considerably lower than the prices that the current "boutique" makers ask for their instruments of similar quality.

This mandolin is quite handsome having the black finish face, medium brown sides and back, a black ebony veneer headstock overlay with no logo on it as is common to the Style A-; the back of the neck is mahogany, the back and sides are plain maple and the top is carved spruce.  This has the oval soundhole, bound in yellowed ivoroid, and encircled on the face by three rings of crème-black-crème.  The bridge is one piece of ebony, compensated at the top, the slide-on tailpiece cover is etched “The Gibson” with a floral pattern.   

This example is especially nifty because not only is it exceptional sounding but also because we ordered it “semi-custom” with a magnificent sunburst (shaded) top, back, sides and back of the neck and a pickup!   The List Price is $2,729.

This mandolin has a teardrop shaped body, twin open f-holes, a sunburst finish top and uniform mahogany brown back and sides. According to history books the Venetian is the only Gibson-made Epiphone mandolin model, meaning a mandolin made in the USA at the Gibson Kalamazoo factory. After 1970 Epiphone brand instruments were made in Japan and since then they have moved on to other Far Eastern countries, but back then they were as American as apple pie and well advertised bladder control products.

There are few prewar mandolins as beautiful or as elegant as the Gibson teens F-2. We tip our hat to Orville H. Gibson (mystery: nobody knows what the middle initial stood for, perhaps we should make a contest out of it) for inventing one of the most compelling musical instrument designs of the past 117 years.

The Gibson F-7 was a fairly short-lived but extremely well regarded model, made for just six years between 1934 and 1939. What it is, essentially, is a Gibson prewar F-5 mandolin with simpler appointments, and having a neck that joins the body at the 10th fret. In terms of the simpler appointments, this model has single-ply crème celluloid side, neck, headstock and pickguard binding, unbound twin lower case f-shaped soundholes.

including pick scratches in the upper bass bout of the face, and other typical scratches, scuffs, dings, hand wear on the back of the neck, infinitely small chips on the finished surfaces. This is to be expected since it is, after all, 88 years old. It has its original hard shell case but the center latch is non-functional since it’s missing the top section (somebody apparently once pried it apart with their Glock ET17070 entrenching tool), and also comes with 3 ancient books of mandolin instruction.