New instrument

As some of you may know, I've not had the easiest of times just lately, culminating in me having to sell up the house.  Well, as my little present to myself I have acquired a rather lovely instrument.

First of all the background- for several months I have been borrowing a Tobin Octave Mandolin, a very lovely instrument that has since been sold to Tom on the forum.  I didn't buy it off my friend myself as I thought my musical projects didn't warrant me having such an instrument.  How wrong was I!  I really missed it in my folk band, and missed having a different timbre to use at church gigs.

So, I have bought myself an arch top octave mandolin- a rather nice one as you can see:



So, this is a 22" scale Weber Yellowstone octave mandolin, which I use in GDAD tuning.  Maple backs and sides and neck:



Lovely burst spruce top:



Ivory (plastic?) bound all over, and lovely inlay at the headstock:



I took it down to Brook yesterday, and Simon very kindly did a bit of set up on it.  It now plays as easily as a Brook!  Low action and a very expressive instrument to play.

It has a k&k pickup in it and sounds absolutely wonderful through my Rivera.

The arch top gives it a very different sound from the Tobin.

This instrument has given me so much joy and inspiration the last couple of weeks- what price do you put on that?

Hopefully I'll get round to recording it soon,

Robbie