[Br1ck]

For the past three years or so, I've been on the lookout for a good mandolin in a very passive sort of way, like going into Gryphon every four or five months. I'd already pretty much decided I was not going to spend $6k on a base model Gibson or Collings. The Northfield Big Mon was a maybe, but $5k is a lot of dough, and their maple has not been as good as other builders, and I mean good as pretty. Fine mandolins they are.

So I left early yesterday to give me time to go by Gryphon on the way to visiting the grandkids. I'd checked their inventory in the morning, but didn't see anything different. So it was just a look around and buy some strings, play some Collings mandolins again. Never really bonded with them. There on the wall was a 15 year old Weber Yellowstone Deluxe. Distressed when it left Montana with another decade and a half of wear and tear. But it was fully bound, had beautiful maple, fern inlays, and much to my surprise, sounded great. See, I'd never liked the Webers I'd played. They were too quiet. Not this one. So I had little time to hem and haw, and the price was right. It was on consignment, and I thought it would not last long. It had just been put out. I walked to the counter, was reaching for my wallet and they were talking to a guy on the phone about buying it. A minute more of indecision, and it would have been gone, Fifteen minutes later, I would never had known it was there. Kind of feel bad as the guy on the phone had called twice before and had just decided. Well, I've been on the other side of the situation.

I'll try to figure out how to post pics. $3k is still a lot of money, but not for a close to top of the line instrument, and I don't have to baby it. Just the perfect mandolin for me, in the perfect 15 minute window, and I've learned to trust my hands and ears. And then decide, you have to know how to do that.