Just bought a new/old Stradolin from a local "clean out your house" fellow. He had it for $200 on Craigslist, but I offered him $125 cash and he accepted Looks quite sound and solid with no cracks, separations etc. The finish is crackly in places and there is some decent fret wear on the lower frets of the high strings. The sound is fairly dead, but new strings will help that pronto. The nut may have to come down a bit. There are some screw holes from a missing pick guard that need filling. Bonus (maybe) someone installed an end pin jack and pickup. The pickup doesn't work at the moment but hopefully when I take the hardware off to clean up the mandolin I'll find a loose wire to fix. If not, I may add some cheap piezos. OK-- get your flamethrowers ready... I'm considering stripping this mandolin's finish and re-doing it. Just a clear finish to show off the nice mahogany. I'd lose the Stradolin logo, but I really don't like the stencil-look logo. I'm not looking for collector value here-- just a cool retro mandolin that looks good and sounds OK. Go ahead-- I have my asbestos jockey shorts on. For now, I'll just take off all the metal, clean it up, maybe hit it with some lemon oil and then live with it for a while.
