I'm bumbling along on the mandolin. I had a cheap Rogue, now I have a Copley CFM-150, which is -- okay, but I don't love it. My difficulty is that although I play poorly, I have a very strong sense of what I like. I have a 1915 Gibson mandola that I got from the Classified here, and I love it. I have a 1973 Geronimo Pena Fernandez guitar that I adore. What I like is the darker, more resonant sound. I'm looking for a mandolin that's in what I would call the same "sound family" as my mandola. I play classical, folk, some blues, some rock. No bluegrass; I am not looking for that brightness (what I think of as sounding shrill and "plinky").
I want an A-style with an oval sound hole. There's really nothing here in Memphis (which seems weird to me, but there it is), so I'm stuck with web searches. I guess I can go to $1,000 including s/h, so I'm hunting for a bargain. Obviously, a pre-war Gibson would do, or maybe an Eastman, but those don't so much come in the bargain bins. The Big Muddy M11 looks like a possibility. I'm also seeing people selling from Greece, Russia, and Ukraine -- some new, some Soviet-era vintage. And many older American brands, that seem to have catered to a mandolin craze. I see Kays, Daytons, Washburns, Goldtone, Martins, Washburns, etc., etc.. I do have a preference for old instruments that have settled in, but I'm not wedded to vintage.
Can anyone tell me what I should avoid? So many of the ads for bargains seem to have been written by people who don't know the difference between selling a musical instrument and selling a toaster.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
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