Originally Posted by Br1ck
Sounds like you are in the same boat as I was. Lots of people chasing "affordable" F styles. My previous Weber experience is that they weren't too loud. In fact, that was my problem with the Ellis I tried, but oh what a jewel that was. You should make the treck to Santa Cruz some time and visit Sylvan, at least when inventory picks up. They stock Weber, Girouard, Ellis, and Pava. Mostly A styles except for Weber. The last time I was there they had a good selection, and until the top tier, they were meah. Close to $7k for the nice ones, all the more reason I was surprised by mine.
I have played only a very few Flatirons, and likely they were Weber or Carlson builds, and at the time Gibson was trying to harass them out of business. They were better than the Gibsons of the time. Then, like my 65 Epiphone Texan, they were built side by side, so they should pretty much be Gibsons.
I have gotten to play a few Harvey era Gibsons and they have all been great, and IMHO, the only way you are going to get that great Gibson chop. A lot of them still have the flat fingerboard though. I can get along with them.
It's hard not to get angry at the prices of good mandolins, but build one sometime and you will realize they are not overpriced. I realize now having a D 18 quality mandolin is not a bad thing. I'll leave others to chase the Dudenbostel, Gillchrist, Apitius, Red Diamond dream. They really are that good. Many others are too.
It really does come down to the individual instrument, and I hope you find one you love. The real education for me was playing a bunch of instruments at THE Mandolin Store and finding my Eastman that I really liked at the time, didn't scratch the surface of tone. The master series Kentukys started too, the Northfield F5 S was a wonder, then the Harvey F 9 blew my mind. At that time I cried uncle and declined to go further. Later, I took my Silverangel into Gryphon and played it next to the Northfields and Collings. They were all equal but different. That put a cap on MAS until I bought a cheap Michael Kelly to work on, and found I was playing it all the time. You know, the scroll.........
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