Kind Of Iffy F-2

[journeybear]

So there's this 1911 F-2 up on eBay. Looks pretty nice at a glance, then you look closer ... When I saw that neck heel crack and the repair, I just shook my head. Well, actually, I lowered my head and shook it, feeling sorrow for the poor thing.

I'm not interested - my MAS is at bay, I've got all I want (I think). But I am curious. Do folks think that's all right? The seller seems to think so. And it's being sold through the auspices of Gryphon, though it's not up at their site. I wonder what that means.

The bidding history is odd - three bids in over a week, and the most recent high bidder retracted his bid. Never seen that. Maybe he thought better of it. I dunno. I thought I'd bring it up here, maybe someone with the right skill set and time to put into such a project might think this is just the thing. If the price stays low, this could well be just that.

[Jeff Mando]

Gryphon was selling another instrument a while back as a project, stating something to the effect they were clearing out 30+ years of instruments they never got around to restoring -- I'm guessing this is one of those.

[Sue Rieter]

Ad says it's to settle an estate. JB and I have been kicking this around offline for a couple days, and I'm also curious what people think (though I already have my own ratty F2 )

[Pappyrich]

That heal crack looks kinda nasty to me. Would be interested to hear some of the luthiers thoughts.

[Peter Coronado]

This F2 is mentioned in this week’s Gryphon eGazette. It says, “We started our eBay auctions as a way to clear out the impressive collection of instruments needing work, and the parts to fix them, that have accumulated in our attic over the decades. It's time to face the fact that if something has been sitting there for ten or twenty years, we are not likely to ever get around to fixing it. And even with that example of our indolence, we are still taking in instruments that need work but instead of sitting on them for thirty years, we're putting them up on eBay right away.”

[jim simpson]

Elderly Instruments also sells projects, often very nice (potential) instruments. I've wondered why they wouldn't fix them up themselves then sell them, but I realize time is money, and they would need to factor all of that time and effort to the price. In the end, I guess it makes sense for a store to sell as is. At lease for the hobbyist luthier who's time is their own, the effort may be worth it.

[rcc56]

That heal crack looks kinda nasty to me. Would be interested to hear some of the luthiers thoughts.

My thoughts on the heel break are that if it appears to be structurally sound, don't mess with it. With a little luck, it could hold for decades.
If it does not appear to be sound, it might be necessary to remove the neck to get a reliable repair.

While there's too much wood missing from the crack's edges to hide it really well, it could be made somewhat less visible by "burning in" dyed stick shellac. Not many of us burn in shellac, though. It's an old-fashioned technique that requires the right materials, tools, and developed skills.

It would be fairly straightforward for a skilled craftsman to replace the missing piece of birch and get a reasonable finish match with aniline dye and French polished shellac. Some might prefer spirit varnish that was brushed or sprayed.

I don't know of any way to make the heel repair really hard to see without pulling the neck; and no matter how good you were it would take many hours and a whole lot of luck to execute a somewhat invisible repair. I think that a completely invisible repair would be nearly impossible.

This is probably why Gryphon and the estate that own the mandolin elected to sell the instrument as-is. The time and cost to execute the cosmetic repairs would be considerable. Selling as-is is more practical, and the buyer can decide how much work they want to put into it.

I've seen similar mandolins in much worse shape sell for more than the current bid of $1575.

[journeybear]

It ended up going for $2001, befitting this space oddity (I know that's a stretch ), which is where my revised estimate landed. (I'd originally figured $4000 - $5000, before I looked at that crack.) I imagine that for this price both parties are fairly well satisfied. The seller got a reasonable amount for it, the buyer has a bit of headroom for repair costs, depending on where he wants to go with it. The neck may well hold - who knows? I sure wouldn't want to risk it. Each to one's own, I reckon.