Joined:
July 2003
Posts: 1922
Location: Canton (Detroit), MI | Ab, certainly NOT trying to say that the Kalamazoo is not authentic or total junk.....Kalamazoo was the "cheap line" (or student line as Al put it) of Gibson. If it was a 1925 or so model, I was wondering if it might be a cheaper version of the classic Lloyd Loar Gibson F-5 or A-5 mandolin designs(first built in the 1923-25 time frame). The F-5 is the pattern for most mandolins used for bluegrass music now, and is the "Bill Monroe" instrument.
I did see your other post on the mandolin.
I am certainly no expert on mandolin collectability, but I would think a Kalamazoo mando in decent shape would get SOME interest from collectors. Maybe they are too common, though.
Roger |
Joined:
May 2002
Posts: 3005
Location: Las Cruces, NM | AB
That Lyon and Healey is one beautiful mandolin, I saw a picture of Bill Monroe playing a mandolin in his early days that loooked a lot like that, but I don't recall it having that distinctive headstock. I believe you are right to keep it in the family, but someone should carefully tune it up and play it now and then, good mandolins should be played.
Roundbacks from the early part of the century usually have astounding examples of wood work and trim, and beautiful woods that you will never see today. Their tone is rather snappy rather than woody like an F type. I had a somewhat plain Washburn from that era that was fun to play that I saw on one of my kids friends wall in Poway, CA hanging as a decoration. I bought it for $25 and took it to Taylor's shop on El Cajon Blvd where he removed the fingerboard and shaved the warped neck. I saw a movie on TV of the Sons of the Pioneers playing a very similar mandolin and so I would jam on it at home occasionally with their songs. I traded it to the local music store for a preamp for my Barcus Berry. Don't sell yours, I think their time might be coming.
Bailey |
Joined:
June 2004
Posts: 271
Location: Ft. Lauderdale, Florida | If I can get this Kalamazoo up and playable, and play a few songs... I might try and talk my cousin into letting me "borrow" the Lyons and Healy ... for a while!!!
My cousin has lived in San Francisco for a long time, we were pretty tight back then... My first wife and I stayed with him before we were married, while I went to commercial diving school in Oakland... His casa was my casa, for about a year or so... back in '77-'78.
My cousin "played" and still has a Martin Vintage guitar... But says he hasn't picked it up in years!!! Pitty, cuz he was really a good guitar player and a mellow guy when we were kids, cool to just be around, sometimes you don't realize how much love you have for someone to you get down lifes highway and look back were you've been...
I can still remeber listening to Fleetwood Mac as we went over the Oakland Bay Bridge to school one morning... You gotta love those memories...
The special moments we all remember were just a string of life's myriad of events, at the time...
After a few decades you realize what special places they have found in your heart and if you are lucky to relive them again, with the same people, the love is rekindled, and feels even better than you remebered it to be, even more special, when it is a relative you haven't seen for 10 years...
My cousin was the one that got me longing to play the guitar, oh so many years ago, when my dad brought home 4-5 guitars from Japan, in the 60's... (from the other post)
My cousin was 13 or 14 at the time and happened to be visting from Pittsburg, that year, when my father came home with all those guitars...(Neil, my cousin, could just pick up ANY guitar and fly thru all the folky, Dylan, Biaz hippy music you ever heard...
He told me over dinner last summer as we passed the Lyons/Healy Mando back and fourth that he didn't know how to play the mando... So he might be game if I hand carried it back from California, as we normally vacation out there. My wife has a sister that lives in Valencia, (45 minutes EAST of LA)and we have 3 cousins from her family that we have a great time with...
Always loved San Francisco, it is a very cool town... My 10 yr old daughter gets a big kick out of the street vendors, down by the water... and wants to go back...
One of her favorites, is an old black guy, that sits on the side walks "hiding" behind some bushes, he holds in his hands... Unsupecting touristos stroll buy oblivious to the plot, while a huge crowd gathers across the street to watch people get the crap scared out of them, when he pops out of the bushes at just the right moment...
Then his side kick passes the hat, even across the street, as 50-75 people have gathered to watch the antics... and happily throw money his way... Supposedly the guy has been doing this game for 15 years or so!!! LOL's
Peace, Brothas and seesters
"Where have all the Hippies Gone... long time ago..."
AB |
Ovations for Christmas
