Excuse me for the long post. I am trying to clarify what I am looking for:
So - I am looking for a quality mandolin, preferable new, with an "open" sound, long sustain, bright tops (but not buzzy) and "full" basses.
I play mostly Greek and Irish music, so I am not looking for the woody, choppy sound of bluegrass mandolins.
I listened to some oval-hole mandolins on Youtube - Big-Muddy, Kentucky k272 and Collings MTO but did not like the sound much, each mandolin for its own reasons.
On the other hand, I heard some great sounding bandolims, such as Brasinilson Do Souto and Del Vechio who had the sound I am looking for.
For example:
https://youtu.be/OfxrJbH95go
I live in Israel and we have practically no good mandolins here. It is also very hard to mail-order an instrument here, as almost no shops send mandolins to Israel and our postal service is outrageous, they'll probably break it or lose it.
I have a friend visiting from the States and wanted to ask him to bring me an instrument. So unfortunately, I cannot try the instrument myself and will have to order something to my friend's home in the States and have him bring it to me.
Could someone recommend me a mandolin that sounds similar to what I describe?
Could be an American brand but does not have to be.
On the other hand, does anybody know of a Brazilian Luthier or good shop on the web that I could safely order a high quality Bandolim from (to the US)? The threads on MandolinCafe about buying bandolims are rather old.
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