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Thread: Why are old Gibson snakeheads worth so much more?

  1. #76
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why are old Gibson snakeheads worth so much more?

    Quote Originally Posted by mrmando View Post
    Differences in hyphen placement can make an A2Z hard to search for!
    https://www.mandolincafe.com/ads/198032#198032
    Ah, yes, makes me remember a mandolin friend, sadly gone, who was enamored of A2Z’s. I think he had two or three of them and made them sound wonderful.
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  2. #77
    Registered User lowtone2's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why are old Gibson snakeheads worth so much more?

    Andy Statman made his sound so good! That was enough to make me want one.

    Now we know that Andy Statman make anything sound good, and Marla Fibish sounds incredible on her old paddle head. So does Andrew Marlin.

  3. #78
    Martin Stillion mrmando's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why are old Gibson snakeheads worth so much more?

    Aaaaaaaand look what showed up at Guitar Center this morning. Already gone.
    Click image for larger version. 

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  4. #79
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why are old Gibson snakeheads worth so much more?

    1923 A2 Snakehead
    SN# 73934 FON# 11865
    Sheraton Brown

    I bought that many many years ago, from The Music Emporium on Mass Ave in Lexington? Arlington? MA. It may have moved since I was there.

    One of my first real mandolin purchases. I hadn't done tons of research. (No internet, no PCs, only Mandolin World News and talking with everyone.) I recall that it cost me about $1000.00 at the time. Appropriate for that instrument at that time, but still enough money that I had to walk around the block several times to decide. How much do you spend on the last mandolin you will ever need. (That is a whole bunch of mandolins ago.)

    I chose it from among several. One was a paddle head, which I thought was clunkier looking, and the other was an F5, scroll and points and F holes. Also Sheraton brown, but I don't remember the year. To show you how inexperienced and naive I was, I thought the peg head looked ridiculous. (I really did). It looked to me like a silhouette of a large nosed guy with a cowlick. And it would cost, if I remember, something like $10,000. Since then I have had knowledgeable folks tell me I must be misremembering that price.

    They both sounded better than any mandolin I had ever heard to that point. It might could have been the guy demonstrating it.

    So what sold me over the other mandolins at the store was the color, the lack of (to me at the time) undignified curley bits and extrusions, and the stately dignified peg head I soon learned was called a snakehead. It seemed a mandolin that took itself seriously.

    So three times around the block and then I bought it. One of the few things I bought in relative ignorance that I would buy today with all I have learned since.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
    funny....

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  6. #80
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why are old Gibson snakeheads worth so much more?

    Quote Originally Posted by mrmando View Post
    Aaaaaaaand look what showed up at Guitar Center this morning. Already gone.
    Click image for larger version. 

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    Yeah, yeah, yeah, I paid multiple times that price but I am still deeply in love with mine. Then again, I have gotten other mandolins at decent prices. It all works out in the end. The balance of the universe...
    Jim

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  7. #81
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why are old Gibson snakeheads worth so much more?

    These beauty, an A2Z just showed up at Gryphon: https://www.mandolincafe.com/ads/199087#199087
    Jim

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    1924 Gibson A4 - 2018 Campanella A-5 - 2007 Brentrup A4C - 1915 Frank Merwin Ashley violin - Huss & Dalton DS - 1923 Gibson A2 black snakehead - '83 Flatiron A5-2 - 1939 Gibson L-00 - 1936 Epiphone Deluxe - 1928 Gibson L-5 - ca. 1890s Fairbanks Senator Banjo - ca. 1923 Vega Style M tenor banjo - ca. 1920 Weymann Style 25 Mandolin-Banjo - National RM-1

  8. #82
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Why are old Gibson snakeheads worth so much more?

    Amazing… there was a 24 A-4 in the classifieds a few days ago. If I didn’t buy mine I would have gone fo that one. I contacted the seller just to chat and by the time I heard from him it was sold. I paid retail and his was even more. I guess there is a market for these.
    Jim

    My Stream on Soundcloud
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    Playing lately:
    1924 Gibson A4 - 2018 Campanella A-5 - 2007 Brentrup A4C - 1915 Frank Merwin Ashley violin - Huss & Dalton DS - 1923 Gibson A2 black snakehead - '83 Flatiron A5-2 - 1939 Gibson L-00 - 1936 Epiphone Deluxe - 1928 Gibson L-5 - ca. 1890s Fairbanks Senator Banjo - ca. 1923 Vega Style M tenor banjo - ca. 1920 Weymann Style 25 Mandolin-Banjo - National RM-1

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