Mandolin News.
The Great Woods Experiment is back on; four otherwise identical mandolins with back and sides in maple, rosewood, mahogany and walnut, see Old Wave pages for more details. Simon Mayor has given a first impression, they have gone to Acoustic Magazine for photography then back to Simon for a full review then on to Dan Beimborn of The Mandolin Archive for his views.
Two fantastic A4s from Mike Vanden that we are selling for Simon Mayor. Mike is probably the only UK bluegrass mandolin maker that is highly rated in the US and for very good reason. We’ve also got a very bassy A5 from Peter Cook.
We’ve got two new Webers in. The much talked about Custom Vintage F4, made from fifty to one hundred year old woods that Bruce recently acquired from a retiring violin maker, it has the vintage tone but with more volume and better definition. And we have a Bighorn two pointer with the most spectacular quilted maple I’ve ever seen, sounds pretty good too, amazing warm bass and rich mids. We’ve now got fourteen Webers in stock and due shortly a Gallatin A4 in all back with one of Bret’s amazing finishes, this will be a black to white(ish) contrast on an extra quilt maple, can’t wait…
I’m still playing my Flinthills A4, we’ve just had our first F5 from Mark and I am very impressed. All the bark and chop of a bluegrass hoss with a very powerful mid range and good sustain. Another A4 and F5 expected soon.
| Old Wave spruce/walnut | Mandolin | £1495 |
| Old Wave A4 spruce/mahogany | Mandolin | £1495 |
| Old Wave A4 spruce/maple | Mandolin | £1495 |
| Old Wave A4 spruce/rosewood | Mandolin | £1595 |
| Weber Bighorn Custom | Mandolin | £2250 |
| Weber Custom Vintage F | Mandolin | £2895 |
| Flinthills F5 special | Mandolin | £1795 |
| Vanden A4 red/brown sunburst with pickup | Vintage Mandolin | £2195 |
| Vanden tobacco sunburst | Vintage Mandolin | £2195 |
| Peter Cook A5 | Vintage Mandolin | £995 |
Guitar News.
New guitars in from Bourgeois, Goodall and Gallagher. Dana’s small jumbo is another of those guitars (like the DS-260, TAMCO custom model coming soon) that has a warmth and depth to the tone that makes me want to give up the mandolin and concentrate on guitar. It looks amazing and sounds incredible. OMC from Dana due in a few weeks.
Our first parlour (fourteen inch lower bout so some wouldn’t call it a parlour) for a while from James Goodall is a little beauty, plenty of volume and really punchy projection. The last Doc Watson Signature Model we had from Don Gallagher wasn’t is the shop long enough to get onto the website. It’s a flatpicker and country player’s dream.
We’ve had six used guitars in since the last download (plus a few that went out before I could get them on the website, its always a good idea to call to see what’s just come in). Three Taylor’s, another twelve stringer, so the answer to that person that keeps calling to his question ’do you have any quality twelve string guitars’ is now definitely yes, a spruce rosewood 420 dread and a 910 with incredible inlays.
We’ve also got a very nice Charles Hoffman in stunning Koa. Charles was part of the first wave of new American luthiers in the 1970s and mentor to James Olson. This guitar shows that you can get the legendary clarity of Koa with some added warmth and resonance. And for that vintage tone we have a ’63 Martin D18.
| Dana Bourgeois Jumbo Cutaway | Guitar | £2395 |
| Goodall Parlour rosewood/spruce | Guitar | £2595 |
| Gallagher Doc Watson Signature | Guitar | £1950 |
| Parsons 12 fret small jumbo | Vintage Guitar | £1195 |
| Martin D18 1963 | Vintage Guitar | £2495 |
| Taylor 420 R | Vintage Guitar | £895 |
| Taylor LKSM Leo Kottke Signature Model 12 string | Vintage Guitar | £1395 |
| Taylor 910 spruce rosewood | Vintage Guitar | £1995 |
| Charles Hoffman Concert Engleman spruce/AAAA Koa | Vintage Guitar | £1995 |
Happy pickin’
Trevor