I'm looking to get my mandolin refretted somewhere in the lower New York area. I'm located in Westchester county so anywhere within a reasonable distance will do.
I play an Epiphone MM-50 F-style, which, while not being a particularly good instrument to start with, has had a lot of work and playing hours put into it. I installed a pickup system in the body, replaced the tuning heads, and have played the hell out of this thing to the point that it sounds significantly better than its off-the-shelf counterpart would, which would be a difficult test to conduct since the specific model has been discontinued, last I checked.
My issue is that I payed $500 for the mandolin, and combined with the pickup and tuners, I've spent about $650-$700 getting the mandolin to where it is now. With its bound neck, Mandolin Brothers on Staten Island, NY gave me a quote of $600 for the full refret. While I could put that money toward buying a new mandolin, I feel like I'd be backtracking in quality unless I dropped a full grand on a better mandolin, which I'm not quite ready to do. I feel like this little guy deserves to be kept in playing condition. So I would wonder if there is a luthier that could do a comparable job to Mandolin Brothers for a price that makes it more worth it given what I paid for the instrument.
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