Official Luthiers Forum!

That's right! Today at was over at my friends place. He does a lot of repairs to really old instruments. He suprises me and says "hey, you want to be one of the few people in the world to hold and play an original Lloyd Loar". I say of course. So he hands me this 1924 Lloyd Loar and says "you are holding $200,000 in your hand!" I got very careful after that. It was in perfect condition, and I found out that it is one of the lost originals that has never been documented. He was corresponding with Gruhn about it to get the right documentation. Also, he told me the story how it got into the family. The guys grandfather bought it in 1964 for $15,000. It was passed to his son, and now the guys 12 year old is a prodigy, and he will play this instrument. Really an amazing story!
Tracy

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Tracy
http://www.luthiersuppliers.com

What no pictures! Tracy, that is a cool story. I hope your friend can put all of the puzzle pieces in order. I am so jealous!

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

I've played four Loars, one incredible, two very very good, and one a total
dog. One of the very very good belonged to my grandfather, which he
bought with insurance money in the 50's after some of his other gear was
stolen from a gig. He died before I was born, and my uncle sold the
mandolin for about $2000.

A few years ago the man who bought that mandolin passed away, and
someone managing his estate brought it in to Elderly's while I was working
with them to consign. That one sold for a little over $100,000.

Two grand to over a hundred grand in a little over thirty years. My family has
never been to wise when it comes to what assets to unload, and which ones
to hold.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

tracy. was it a guitar or mandolin. loar was
involved with both at gibson. i don't know what his involvement with other gibson products, e.g., banjos may have been.

You have to take compound interest into account. That 200K guitar? The grandfather got "ripped off" (in an ecomonic sense). 15K at 8% interest in 43 years is 410K, twice the current worth of the guitar. At 10%, it's nearly a million.

Whereas David's uncle did really well - that's a 14% return over 30 years. Not bad at all compared to a stock market return of 8-10 percent over the same time period.

Not trying to knock the coolness of playing an original Loar, but pointing out that these seemingly amazing investments in vintage instruments is available to anyone who invests.

Another example - people salivate hearing about buying QS Brazilian sets in the 70's for $75. At 8% interest, that runs to $754 in 30 years - a very modest return compared to the scarcity of the wood. We are seeing sets go for less than that in the OLF sale.

Roger and Michael, it was a mandolin. Nothing really fancy, and I was not really impressed with the inlay work. To me, it looked really sloppy with a lot of glue and dust to hide the huge pockets he cut. No CNC back then, but you could tell he was in a hurry. The sound was pretty good, but a strong V neck and very thin at the nut. To me it was hard to play, but then again I'm a guitar player.

Very good points Roger. But the 200k is the low end on how much it is worth. It could very well fetch 400k on the high end. After Gruhn documents it, we'll know for sure.
Tracy

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Tracy
http://www.luthiersuppliers.com

Although I'm not a mandolin player and I only know a couple of chords on one, I was given the chance to play what is widely accepted within the mandolin community as the first Loar made at Gibson. It's even called a "prototype." Clearly has his signature in it and is well thought of by all who play it. The gentleman that owns it now is an older local mandolin builder. I think he's got a GREAT pattern to work from.