of search, looking almost everywhere, I noticed a special price (less than $500.00) on Amazon.com for the Trinity college professional line mandola, which usually has a street price of over $ 750.00 The ad said "only two left".
The price of this mandola, model TM 475, was LOWER than the price of the standard flat body TM 275 mandola.
I ordered it with overnight shipping ( I am an Amazon Prime customer therefore I only paid $ 3.75 for it...) and I got the mandola the day after, in its (very nice) hard shell case.
I could not believe it when I opened the case: the mandola was beautiful, with a solid arched spruce top and solid rosewood back and sides, a heavy brass (or bronze) tailpiece, and great vintage gold tuners. The strings looked old (I guess that the mandola had sit in the Amazon warehouse for several months) and needed to be replaced. When I finally tuned the instrument, I had the pleasure to hear a great tone,
musical and resonant, with loud volume. The nut slots were perfectly cut with easy action and no strings buzz at all, the neck was straight with just a very minimal amount of relief, the action was low.
This mandola looks and sound (please allow me) like a handmade instrument.
Strangely enough, now the same mandola is sold at Amazon.com at the old price of
$ 769.00... don't know why Amazon offers these discounts once in a while as it happened to me, and then goes back to the standard price.
It happened to me also with a Johnson deluxe MA 500 bouzouki (the one with flamed maple back) which is usually sold at over $ 650.00 at Amazon and everywhere else.
There were only two left, and the price was down to $ 450.00.
I bought it, and the day after the Amazon price for the only one left went back to over $ 650.00.
Well then, I just wanted to share this lucky customer experience.
By the way, although both instruments (the Johnson bouzouki AM500 and the Trinity College TM 475 mandola) both sound great, there is in my view no comparison in terms of quality and craftmanship.
The Johnson bouzouki is very "flashy" with all that abalone but a look inside reveal
a standard/almost cheaply made instrument, with glue residues and not much care of the details. More over, it needed a heavy set up before sounding right.
The Trinity College TM 475 is absolutely flawless: I am very picky with the details and the set up of my guitars and mandolins, and this is the first time that I did not need to adjust anything, apart from replacing the strings with a fresh set.
Thank you for your attention. Now, if I only could play these instruments a bit better !
