Michael Vignoles website?

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Windcrier
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Michael Vignoles website?

Post by Windcrier »

I recently purchased (but have not yet received) a bodhran from michaelvignoles.com, based upon the glowing reviews Mr. Vignoles has received for his drums in various online venues. And this was the site address that was linked to for Mr. Vignoles on another fairly popular bodhran site. However, the email that the PayPal payment went to had a different domain name (although associated with an ISP in Ireland, at least), and the poorly spelled email I received in response to my order was a little troubling. But not every great craftsman is also a wordsmith, so I didn't think much about that … until tonight when I came across michaelvignoles.info, an entirely different-looking and frankly more polished website that also claims to be that of Mr. Vignoles.

Does anyone know which one of these websites are legit? Or are they both? Or neither? They both list the same email addresses and phone numbers, but I'm unsure if that means much.
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Re: Michael Vignoles website?

Post by MTGuru »

If you do a Whois lookup at GoDaddy

http://who.godaddy.com/?isc=gofdd010

you'll find that michaelvignoles.com is registered to Michael Vignoles, and michaelvignoles.info is registered to Michael's son Paul Vignoles, who works with Michael, both with addresses in Galway city. You'll also find a registration e-mail address in the iol.ie domain, which might match the Paypal addy you mentioned.

I don't know for sure ... Based on this info, and on the shared e-mail info@michaelvignoles.com on both, I'd guess that they're just two different presentations, father and son, and both probably legitimate (if confusing). But to be sure, I'd write to Michael and ask (and let us know the result if you can).
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Re: Michael Vignoles website?

Post by Windcrier »

MTGuru wrote:If you do a Whois lookup ... you'll find that michaelvignoles.com is registered to Michael Vignoles, and michaelvignoles.info is registered to Michael's son Paul Vignoles, who works with Michael, both with addresses in Galway city.
I never thought to do a Whois lookup (bad me). Those results are very much reassuring to me, as I had already seen elsewhere that Michael's son works with him. Based upon this, I'm now thinking that both sites are probably legit, although it is indeed a puzzler for potential customers to have two of them (and especially where neither of the sites mentions or links to the other), so I may mention that to Michael and ask him about it later, if I get a chance. (I already asked him about the status of my order, and I don't want to bludgeon him with a barrage of emails.)
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Re: Michael Vignoles website?

Post by Windcrier »

Well, I've so far found four different domains that seem to be Michael's websites, and all of them seem to me to be legitimate for one reason or another:

michaelvignoles.com
michaelvignoles.info
irelandwoodcrafts.com
claddaghbodhrans.com

I'd ordered my bodhran from michaelvignoles.com, which I have indeed just received today and think is a fine instrument indeed. But I have noted the instrument itself shows claddaghbodhrans.com as an web address. That address maps to irelandwoodcrafts.com, which is owned by DomainsByProxy, so that's a dead end as far as the investigation goes, but if the instrument itself says it is from there, well, that's pretty convincing.

MichaelVignoles.info's PayPal address seems to be the same one as the one on MichaelVignoles.com. I did notice that the payment method is different on irelandwoodcrafts.com (and even some of the prices and instrument photos are a little different), but again, when the instrument I ordered from michaelvignoles.com lists claddaghbodhrans.com (which is irelandwoodcrafts.com) right on the side, I tend to believe they are just a number of different ways to reach the same individuals.

I have corresponded with Michael several times during the course of this order, and am pretty confident at this point that I was in touch with the right person, and that there may have been a quite understandable reason why his original email to me was a little extra "blurry". So, from my perspective, all's well that ends well.
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