I've been playing mandolin for about 5 years and just recently purchased an octave mandolin. It's a Moon (Jimmy Moon - Scotland)octave mandolin: maple back and sides, spruce top, mahogany neck with a rosewood fretboard, short scale - 21.25 inches. So far I'm very happy with it. I paid about $1100 including shipping from England to California (purchased from TAMCO). I will be playing it in the Noe Valley Plucked String Orchestra in San Francisco. I replaced the strings with the Thomastik mandola strings which are very close to the recommended gauges but just barely long enough to fit. The workmanship is flawless and it sounds great (...though I don't have any experience with other OM's to make any comparison). The short scale is pretty easy to adjust to. I've enclosed a picture of the whole family; the Moon is in the middle, a Rigel mandolin on the left, and a longer scale tenor guitar on the right. I'm looking forward to becoming a member of the OM players family.
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