Finding Mandolin

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Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Road Trip III

While surfing around the web looking for additional mandolin resources, I came across Elderly Instruments in Lansing, Michigan. Being only about an hour away, and looking for another excuse to avoid digging shrubs, we went out to explore.

What an amazing store! I have never seen so many instruments in one place. Think of it this way: Think about the largest guitar store you've ever seen, and how many guitars they had. Now picture a store that has that kind of a selection in their mandolin offerings alone. I couldn't begin to count the number of guitars they had. Folk, classical, electric - new, used, vintage, antique, and some just plain old. This is not to mention their mandolins, ukeleles, dulcimers, fiddles, accordions and more. One could spend days selecting an instrument - it was truly overwhelming. I did see a $13,000 mandolin and a $38,000 guitar.

Also not to be overlooked was an incredible selection of Folk, Bluegrass and Ethnic CD's, and an amazing stock of music books and DVD's. Alas, as overwhelming as it was, it was difficult to find anything to buy. The spousal unit picked up a couple of CD's, but my find of the day was a pack of Simpson's guitar picks.