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As many of you know, there was a post on the cafe recently that Ken Ratcliff was giving away one of his handmade Silverangel mandolins to a young mandolin picker and he asked me to share a clip of my...

"To be obsessed with the destination is to remove the focus from where you are." Philip Toshio Sudo, Zen Guitar

Yup. So where I am right now is a place where I continually improve and plateau and...

I had a customer who was 83 when he bought one of my mandolins from me. He was a bit reticent because of his age, but I told him it really depended on what he wanted to do with the rest of his life...

But no banjos.

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Wait, I'm pretty sure I've seen pictures of angels with bowlback mandolins, and fiddles, too !

I'm kind of counting on it :cool:

I bought a Gibson F5 Master Model mandolin and a Martin D28 when I was in my 60's. I'm now in my 80's and am still going strong. For the price I paid for them my wife should be able to get close to...

Heck! I'm 76 & getting closer to 77 every day. My apt. is littered with fine mandolins, mandolas and guitars and they all get play time. I play every day and gig often. If you want to order the...

You got it! I decided I just didn't have the time to play all my usual deliberation games. I needed to get on board with my daughter and secure this time with her before she heads off to...

Many decades ago, I designed an inlay pattern for a custom Collings guitar for Bill's mother. It became the "Mom" inlay. This mandolin fingerboard inlay is an adapted and updated version and can be...

It is sometimes called a "cross piece". I'm not sure it has a universally recognized name.

Why do you say he is under-appreciated? It seems he gets lots of respect here on the Cafe.

Well I have been looking for a Gibson style oval for a little while since playing a late teens early twenties A4. The opportunity arose to acquire a Mike Black A2z. So reading good things I took...

I have been aware of this store since the 1970s and have always thought of them as a highly prestigious stringed instrument retailer. I called the other day to inquire after a 1950s Martin guitar I...

You’ll get a lot of opinions on this but in general I think that price point is a bit too low to be able to expect a good playable instrument. You might get lucky, and/or be able to set it up using...

Glad you like it and are happy playing it, that implies you will play it more often and there will be more mandolin music in the world, a win win I'd say.
I also understand the need to move up from...

Sometime in the past, here on the Forum, some wag estimated that there were 5 billion guitars to every 10 mandolins (or something along those lines). While maybe an exaggeration, it's most assuredly...

I cannot say that I've actually ever seen a mandolin. I'm sure I have, but I didn't begin to pay attention to them until long after I'd lost my vision and decided to transition from the violin to...

I still think the Zeidler mandolin made by the late John Zeidler of Philadelphia is one of the nicest mandolins I've held. He had just finished one and handed it to me to check out. It seems so...

My guess is that it's on consignment. The owner does't want to invest in repairs. The shop doesn't want to buy it, repair it, and try to resell it so they list it "as is" and try to move it for the...

The guy had a stroke? And cannot play his mandolin anymore? Swallow it. Pay it back. Whatever small compensation you eke out of this saddened family is nothing compared to the good karma the...

Hats off to Ken! What a noble gesture. I was going to send in my photo plus sound clip but I didn't think he'd fall for it, lol!

Yea I saw that too. Here is the ad...

https://www.mandolincafe.com/ads/200300#200300

Good on Ken for being so generous with his time and talent.

I wonder what the chances are of him donating one to a middle-aged mediocrity?

I see in the classifieds Ken is in the process of building a Silverangel for which he will donate to a child prodigy between the ages of 6 & 16 unable to afford a quality instrument.
Nice to see...

Hey y'all... was down in Seattle this past weekend and was amazed to see how many Northfield instruments were available at Dusty Strings. I think about 9 or ten instruments including an octave mando....