Sam company inlaid mandolins Tawain

[dunnp]

Hi there,
Has anyone tried or have they been discussed here and I missed it. I had one of these highly inlaid mandolins a friend brought back from Vietnam and it actually wasn't too bad. These ebay ones look much nicer.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Classical-Inlaid- ... 9457235621
Seems like they might be getting into bouzoukis as well.
Anyone played one or know of one.
I'll go check out Mnadolin Cafe as well but I don't hang out there.
Thanks, Patrick

[Padre]

if you want to hang that on the wall go ahead
if you want to play it and use it as an instrument
just forget about it.
enter the name of the guy in google, some time ago there was a whole page
made of letter from a lot of angry folks that have bought this "luthiers" products.
seems like the wood is not seasoned at all and cracks within a few weeks.
I was considering buying one of his mandolas, but I'm a little bit paranoid and I'm always checking suppliers like that.
and you'll find quite a few threads about this guy on mandolin cafe.
if you wanna get a simple and not very expecive zouk look at all the trinity college/johnsons or celtic star products.

[MTGuru]

That's too bad if it's bad. There are actually some very nice instruments coming out of Vietnam nowadays. My ukulele was built in a factory set up by a group of master French luthiers, and is excellent in every respect.

[Tim2723]

MT, there are some remarkably good products coming from the Far East today, and no mistake. But this guy is setting the world back half a century with the junk he sells. These things harken back to the 'Made in Japan' days when that meant cheap.

[MTGuru]

Sure, understood. As always, people need to do their homework, sorting the good and the bad.