Loar Picture of the Day

[Darryl Wolfe]

Happy Birthday to the July 9 mandolins and to F5loar who owns a "birthdate" example. #His is on the left, mine is on the right. #74000 and 73992.

[Darryl Wolfe]

Now that's what we're talking about

[mandopluker]

- - - - - O M G - - - -

[F5GRun]

Drool City...population: ME

[Mikey G]

Shazaam! That's like mandoporn.

[Timbofood]

I trust there was plenty of birthday cake for you and your "play date"! How cool!

[f5loar]

I had my July 9th out all week picking in celebration of it's 85th BD. Out of respect I picked mostly Monroe tunes. Back to the vault to sleep until next July!

[evanreilly]

I got a good chance to 'Walk the Dog' with #74000 last week when it was in town here, and that sure is a nice mandolin! It looks pristine; not much in the way of smell, tho. And yes, we played Monroe tunes whenever!

[Darryl Wolfe]

81251 in the case. A very nice example of the so-called "unsigned Loars"

[Mandolusional]

That's a really nice one! I'm still waiting for the as yet undiscovered lefty-Loar though. I have a feeling I may be waiting a long time.

[danb]

Here's a nice photo from
Elderly Instruments showing
F5 75702




Note how the wear pattern shows the layers of plating over the brass, and also the two holes on the side- this tailpiece cover would fit on a k5 or l5 style trapeze tailpiece too!

[f5loar]

Must have run out of reg. F5 covers! And now Elderly has for sale 2 1924 F5s for $225,000 each. Decisions, decisions....... what must one do? If I wait until after Nov. 4 maybe I can receive a huge tax credit for buying one! After all Loars are engergy efficient using only the oldest of woods to project their self contained power.

[danb]

The thought I had was the probably had more made that could accomodate a trapeze than they necessarily needed- that type works on any style 5

[tree]

I have only a basic understanding of the issues with collectibility and price. Elderly says this one "probably needs a refret". I wouldn't hesitate to have my personal mandolin refretted (I just did, actually), but what would you need to consider if you bought this mandolin and decided to have it refretted? Would you remove and replace the entire fretboard and save the original, or just replace (and save?) the old frets?

[danb]

With a Loar, I would think you would want to match the original wire, or replace the entire fretboard if you want to go with bigger frets & a radius.

There is appropriate wire out there that matches the original, and I think it's a subtle but important part of the tone and playability of them.

That said, it's a subtle but important part of the playability for others to put in a radius board with larger frets. No way to put a value on personal preferences

[Darryl Wolfe]

82916 now listed on the auction site. Does anyone know where this came from. It is extraordinary when a new number shows up and the instrument is very well played in like this

[f5joe]

Sweet!

[f5loar]

Not so out of the oridnary for the F5J not to know about this one. This is one of the many out there that are known by others but never seem to make it to the F5J archives. Others know about it, probably have even played it but seldom if ever care about serial numbers but they know where they are at. As stated this was sold by Randy Wood some 30 years ago so this would have just as the F5J got started on compling the numbers. I bet Randy didn't jot down numbers either back then. No doubt this one has some serious "Rawhide" miles on it. I would guess there are some two dozen more out there like this not known to the F5J but known to others.

[Darryl Wolfe]

The F5J does however capture the out of the ordinary most of the time and adds things to the "archive" on a regular basis

The elusive "F5LOAR"

[AlanN]

Now, if I were to run into that wax dummy of Big Mon at Mme. Tousseau's Wax Museum, I would do a double take!

[f5vinnie]

F5 loar and evanreilly are superb loar pickers.

[f5loar]

Well maybe "superb" is a little strong in describing us.
How about just "old" Loar pickers and let it go at that!

[evanreilly]

Huh??? Aren't all the Loars old?? You ain't calling us old, now, are you???

P.S. - if you want to look up F5Loar's and my videos, check out my Youtube channel 'reillyevan'. Vote on who is older, us or the mandolins!!!

[Zigeuner]

From what I understand, the reason that he scratched out his inlay was because they did a refinish.

I had heard that also. I'm not sure what the actual reason was but he must have been angry with the Gibson Company at some point when he removed the Gobson logo. IIRC, I was fortunate enough to see Mr. Monroe playing that very Mandolin at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles one night in the 1960's but I can't remember exactly when. Wow, what a player!

I never got to meet Mr. Derrington but I've heard about him through the years and from what I've seen of his restoraton work on those mandolins, he was in a class by himself. I sure wish he was still with us.

Thanks for these threads. I truly enjoy them.

[evanreilly]

That was in 1963. There are live recordings from that West Coast tour of Monroe and the BGB as well as Monroe and Doc Watson available on the Smithsonian CDs put together by Ralph Rinzler