Quint Mandolin

Hi everyone I am the newbie in your club!!

I am looking to buy a Quint Mandolin from Japan and I wonder if you have any clue on the artisan builder? I have been told buy the seller the mandolin is made Mr. Qui a great chinese luthier who made high-end models of the Kentucky Mandolin, and then the Northfield Mandolin. He learned from his art from Mike Kemnitzer? Don't know if this true? Any clue?

Price is $1900 USD
here is the Madolin Spec.
Top: Solid Swiss Spruce
Side: Solid Swiss Maple
Back: Solid Swiss Maple
Neck: Solid Swiss Maple
Bridge: Ebony
Machine Head: Gotoh
Finish: is shellac varnish
Binding: Aibo Lloyd binding
Pick Guard: Wood

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Quint Mandolin Handmade by China Top Lucier Mr. Qin Ji Duo. Finished with Italian spruce top, Swiss Tiger Maple back, premium ebony fingerboard & bridge, goto pegs, ivoroid binding, and shellac burnished finish. With a beautiful polished arched top, R fingerboard, medium size fret, and original floating pickguard for a high level of precision and taste. Soft V-shaped neck with R-finger board and finger board end for excellent handling. It has a good flow throughout the entire area, and gives you a direct sense of boxing, and is recommended for use in a variety of genres, as well as blue glass. This is a special deal because there are scratches on the store display and scratches on the case. Regular ¥297,000

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There are a few listed on Amazon. One description above. I've never heard of them but that only means that I've never heard of them. If someone has any history with them I'm sure they'll pop in.

It’s pretty, I can’t offer any other information, sorry.

Dunno. If I were looking at an instrument at this price point, and didn’t have the ability to try it out, verify follow-up service, etc., I’d look for something else. On the other hand, some people will be attracted by having uncommon or expensive things. I guess my 1940’s Howard Johnson’s cupola might qualify, but not much else I own..

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Originally Posted by Richard500

I guess my 1940’s Howard Johnson’s cupola might qualify, but not much else I own..

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Is a cupola a mandola made in the shape of a cup? I assume it has an orange finish?

By the way, I think you have the builder's name wrong. I think it's Jiduo Qin. If it is he did apparently work for Northfield and they may have had Mike Kemnitzer doing some consulting with them, I certainly don't know that, perhaps someone else does. Beyond that I can't find anything else of substance.

http://www.northfieldworkshop.com/ma...ies/73-company

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Originally Posted by Jim Garber

Is a cupola a mandola made in the shape of a cup? I assume it has an orange finish?

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Partly orange, but the copper roof was originally turquoise. The main building roof was orange, an interesting and novel suggestion by a famous designer, because the HoJos were meant to look like familiar New England colonials. I found a pile of rot and splinters here in CT, trucked it home and restored it, with a few cheats here and there. Way too heavy to put up on the barn, so it remains on the ground. Never found any photos of the building itself, but pretty sure it was fairly early. Some of our members might have no knowledge of HoJo, clam strips and all that. A whole culture of road food from the 30’s to the 60’s.

The Howard Johnson chain was still pretty healthy in New England in the 80's. I stayed at them all the time when I was on the road. The last two I was in were in New Jersey, the last being a restaurant that closed in the late 90's.

I own two as F5 style and A5 style. I have purchased F style in the store in Tokyo, purchased A style as used condition by online from store in Osaka.
He definitely seems to have worked at Northfield. I don't understand Chinese, but a Taiwanese friend who is fluent in English looked him up, and He had found that his name is listed in some Chinese newspaper or magazine's article about Northfield's Chinese workshop. His name seems to be "Qin Ji Dou" or "Qin Jidou" which is correct. I think his crafting skills are very impressive, but his background is a complete mystery to me.　The only thing I can say for sure is that he definitely worked at Northfield. You can see some photos on my album.

My favorite line from Mike’s quote above though I have no clue what the seller was trying to say about the flow: “It has a good flow throughout the entire area, and gives you a direct sense of boxing, and is recommended for use in a variety of genres, as well as blue glass.”

Thanks for finally noticing that :cool:

After that, I have read a description on their web store. It appears that they made an English site which used by translation software. Therefore some words and expression were unusual in native English speakers. I am not native english speaker, so I was able to understand what they said. probably, I guess you could not understand what they wanted to say.

This is my opinion.
I have ever owned many mandolins which made in the western countries over 40 years. To tell the truth, I did not prefer Oriental made. But I tried Eastman and Quint at the shop. I have chosen the Quint.
Quint mandolins are good value for the price. If it was made in the USA, it would not be expensive even if it was more than double and more the price.

I don't remember seeing this discussion. This below popped up on Instagram today. Sure looks inspired by Northfield, and apparently the builder using the Quint name was employed by them at one time. It's a one-person shop.

In case you need a capo for it ...
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I’m resurrecting this thread to see if anyone has had more experience with these. I’m curious how they relate in quality to Northfield and the the high-end Kentucky and Eastman mandolins. Thanks

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Originally Posted by PatLong

Hi everyone I am the newbie in your club!!

I am looking to buy a Quint Mandolin from Japan and I wonder if you have any clue on the artisan builder? I have been told buy the seller the mandolin is made Mr. Qui a great chinese luthier who made high-end models of the Kentucky Mandolin, and then the Northfield Mandolin. He learned from his art from Mike Kemnitzer? Don't know if this true? Any clue?

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Hi there. I was wondering if you ended up purchasing this mandolin?
I am new to this forum and joined so I could try to get more info on Quint mandolins.
I could only find a few mentions about them, one place being this thread.
I took a chance and bought one off of Reverb that is being shipped to me from Japan, which is the only place I think they are sold, as far as I can tell.
I did as much research as I could and found that Quint is made by Jidou Qin, the original builder of Northfield Mandolins. Jidou Qin was one of the first people in the group of 5 for Northfield when they started. He was the main woodworker and builder of mandolins at Northfield, according to an archive of the Northfield site. He has since started his own mandolin company in 2016 it seems - Quint - and he builds each one by hand, as he did at Northfield.
The resemblance of the Quint mandolins is certainly visually noticeable, and I would presume sound wise as well, since Mr Qin was one of the developers and builders of Northfield from the start.
I bought the QT-F5S. I guess we will see how it compares to my Northfield NF-F5S. They look nearly identical except for the headstock on the Quint is unbound, but does have a flower pot inlay.

This is the instrument I purchased. And a snip from the Northfield website about Jidou Qin from archive.org from 2016.
And some info from another post here from 2012
https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...=1#post1112105
And here is the archive of Northfield's page from 2016
https://web.archive.org/web/20161026...t-us/our-story

I can't wait to try it out! It should be here next week! Thanks
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Please do report back! I was curious about this maker too - there are a couple of nice-looking octave mandolins on Reverb.

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Originally Posted by Melt_in_the_Sun

Please do report back! I was curious about this maker too - there are a couple of nice-looking octave mandolins on Reverb.

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Those OM do look nice. Especially with the cutaway.
I almost bought this mandolin which looks equivalent to the NF Artist. But I don't have enough at the moment to spend $2700. It has a varnish finish and a K&K pickup too.
https://reverb.com/item/62452411-qui...f5-w-pure-mini
But it is $1000 more than the one I bought.
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