This weeks mandolin that won't get a bid or buyer

[journeybear]

That's some fine sleuthing there, sir! These all look like the same instrument. I see that the first listing is from four years ago, and it sold for $150. The second was posted recently with a price of $200. It has many more photos. Oddly enough, none of them are the same as what dustyamps posted.

I was thinking this might have been an instrument that someone gutted for parts - pickup, bridge, nut - and ws trying to sell the unwanted remains, the body. But now having seen pics of the back, I am left wondering how the electronics could have been installed - there's no access plate.

At any rate, it's already proven to have actually gotten a buyer at least once - and now maybe twice, s it's no longer on eBay, if it ever was.

[dustyamps]

Come on Jim, I am more than happy to share this oddity with everyone. I don't know how to do a link and thought it would be easy to find. It was on ebay yesterday listed at $200 or best offer. I can't find it listed today.

[Richard500]

Ignoring the incomplete build, the body outline looks interesting, and the ten string plan. Since the pickup pocket was started with three careful Forstner bit cuts, and finished a little irregularly , my guess is a one-off or prototype, with the various screw holes meant for more hardware. Pretty sure all the appearances are the same unit. Also guess the pickup lead goes direct to the jack through the neck beam, so no pots, which is also novel. The contrasting headstock horn adds some balance and ties the design together, but some might just choke over it.
If we guess it has actually appreciated from $150 to $200.. not bad performance. And another place to anchor a strap.

[journeybear]

Thanks for more info, dustyamps. My guess is the listing was pulled, or it would still be up with a "sold" designation.

I don't think it's settled that it has appreciated by 33%. It sold for $150 four years ago and is now for sale on Reverb for $200, with no taker (yet). I'm wondering, too, if it's some sort of prototype, sort of a physical sketch, without sorting out how to install pots and wires and whatever else it would need to be a working instrument. I'm also thinking it was intended to be a five-course instrument, similar to a Fender Mandocaster but with double strings. Can't say for sure without a nut or bridge.

I am thinking way too much about this!

[mrmando]

The eBay listing is marked Sold.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/144954363644

It reminds me a little bit of Steve Wishnevsky but his work is on one hand even more quick 'n' dirty than this, and on the other hand a little more well thought out, i.e., this doesn't have any routing or drilling for control knobs, whereas Wishnevsky at least builds a complete instrument. There is a strap button in the endpin position here that might also be an output jack, I guess.

There are screw holes drilled for a pickguard/cover plate of some kind. The pickup cavity is so wide that you could probably put the pots and control knobs on either side of the pickup and mount them in the cover plate. But it would be hard not to accidentally turn the knobs with your wrist while playing, methinks.

I can't tell if the tuners are correctly placed to allow a clear path for each string from tuner to nut. It sure doesn't look like it.

[journeybear]

Aha! Ta da! Thanks for finding that. I searched on "tendolin" and got nothing. I also searched on electric mandolins going back a year and got nothing. Y'all got mad skills for sleuthing. Same wording/seller as the Reverb listing, BTW.

So, yes, a 33% profit on the investment, over four years ... It'll do, I suppose.

[Jim Garber]

Too bad there was only one. I was hoping to have a whole band of tendolins.

[Jim Garber]

Come on Jim, I am more than happy to share this oddity with everyone. I don't know how to do a link and thought it would be easy to find. It was on ebay yesterday listed at $200 or best offer. I can't find it listed today.

Simple to post a link. Just find the page you want to link to, copy the link from your browser then click the globe icon with the chain link on the icons above the post window and paste the link into the widow and then ok.

[Jeff Mando]

PS: I don't see it on eBay nor google. Not "tendolin."[/QUOTE]

It has sold. $200 plus $30 shipping. NFI.

According to the links Jim posted, it was sold for $150 from a Knoxville seller, as a project. Then resold for $200 by this current seller in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

I guess the design wouldn't be for everyone's taste, but the workmanship looks pretty good to me. Hard to say what it might require, besides a pickup, nut, bridge, and wiring. Odd that the current seller bought it, but decided not to restore it, for whatever reason. Seems like a hard way to make $50 bucks, so I'm guessing there must be some neck/neck angle/playability issues. Just a guess.

Agree, great wall hanger!

[brunello97]

Too bad there was only one. I was hoping to have a whole band of tendolins.

Yessir.

I'll bet Les Claypool would be in line for a "Pork Tendolin". Or two.

Obviously a "tendola" and "tenocello" are in the development stage.

There would need to be a "tendobass" a unique 10 string bass holding down the low end.

A "tenoftwelve" ten-string-twelve-string guitar for those jangly rhythms.

A "tenjo" would be a big seller. All those extra drone strings would keep your thumb busy. And happy.


Any electric versions of the tenolin would need knobs that went up to eleven, though.


Mick

[Richard500]

Tendentious

[slimt]

This is an over the top Blueberry instrument with way too much glitz and little aesthetic appeal to me. It has 12 strings but I am guessing guitar scale but has 8 courses. And I love the mixture of bass and standard guitar tuners. This is also a candidate for worst scroll of the year, too. Might contain a few pounds of pearl, too. And only $3850USD. Yikes! https://www.ebay.com/itm/115642473987

Kind of reminds me of the cheap encrusted jewellery boxes held together with chicken snot glue .

[journeybear]

Any electric versions of the tenolin would need knobs that went up to eleven, though.

You sure were having some fun taking the possibilities here and running with them!

PS: I don't see it on eBay nor google. Not "tendolin."

Yeppers, I mentioned my search engine items - "tendolin" and "electric mandolin" - because I was baffled that they were not providing results. Finally seeing the listing shows why - neither term appears. One would think they would - at least I did. Somehow "Homemade 10-string neckthrough mandolin husk, luthiers special" doesn't really summarize this beastie's special nature, apart from the "10-string part." I try to use search terms that are at least theoretically unique to the item. If they don't work, an d/or I have the time, I might dig deeper. This item wasn't inspiring me to put a whole lot of effort into discovery.

[Caberguy]

Buy it, see what shows up... I DARE YOU (NFI). Though it does seem a bit steep for a non-functioning "The Loar" LM-310F:



https://reverb.com/item/66218266-the...19-brown-burst

[Richard500]

Proof that there’s more than one way to refinish your instrument.

[journeybear]

And yet, even paint that thick can't cover up cracks that bad.

[Skip Kelley]

Proof that there’s more than one way to refinish your instrument.

[Richard500]

Skip, glad you enjoyed this definitely agricultural job. Indeed, the interior photo showed the red oozed right through the exceptional cracks. Almost as if it had been dipped! The strings don’t work nearly as well when they’re painted too.
Except for the color and the horrible substrate, the thick, plastically and often derided clearcoat on some low-end factory instruments is similar, but more uniform.
That said, the intent may have been wall decoration in a restaurant; a fate that awaits even the occasional great instrument.

[journeybear]

I was thinking the same thing - it's only good as a wall hanging, especially now. Indeed, I'm guessing the choice for color (the horror! ) was probably determined by the color scheme of the restaurant it was intended to decorate.

[Sue Rieter]

Does this Gibson A seem a little overpriced at $11,140 ?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/17566324852...&segname=11021

[Bill McCall]

Does this Gibson A seem a little overpriced at $11,140 ?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/17566324852...&segname=11021

It’s overpriced at $1140.

[Sue Rieter]

It’s overpriced at $1140.

Just got an email. Reduced to $1140.

[Eric Platt]

Saw the corrected price. Much better there. FWIW, I don't think it's overpriced if it doesn't need any real work. Even without the case or endpin and wrong bridge it appears to be nice looking.

I'd also vote for putting lights on it, but that's my preference on the older A models.

[Jim Garber]

I'd also vote for putting lights on it, but that's my preference on the older A models.

Yeah, buy are those older Gibsons dark or what? I always thought it would be good to put lights on a mandolin… it would make it much easier to read music in the dark, too.

[Richard500]

Color changing LED purfling and binding are certainly possible, and certainly illuminated board markers. Go stroboscopic too, for easier tuning without a display.