I've got darn near $8K worth of guitars in the closet that aren't getting played because of this little bastard! You know, if I sold those guitars I could buy a Collings F mando too. Hmmm...I'll have to think about that one a bit.

Tim, So sell some! Got any Collings Koa?

Mandolins are cool, and your looks like a beauty, but don't sell the guitars yet. You never know when you might get the urge to come back to the real thing. :-)

I've been having a similar problem recently. I've been doing the post production and mixing of a CD for a local singer/songwriter. I really like the project and I got to play guitar on 6 of the tunes, bass on one and percussion on some, but the playing part has been over for a while. Now I'm mixing, tuning, EQing, compressing, reverbing, sculpting - everything but playing. I think the CD is almost done, so I did carve out a few minutes last night and played 3 guitars. Still, the only one not hanging in it's spot right now is the lap steel. Uh Oh, I've been getting a little country. I think you darn Texans did it too me. :-)

I'm not selling any guitars. I was just funnin' with you guys. This little mandolin has got me totally enamored though. I bring it to work just about every day and play it for an hour during lunch. I started bringing in a guitar instead every other day, but that was kind of breaking my groove and setting me back on the mando so I'm back to the mando now. I need to send Bill Collings word that #74 is indeed a good one, btw.

What a heavy burden to have to bear! Let me know if you decide to part with that legendary D-2HA.

We all have our crosses to bear, Ravenstune.

Some background on my comment above about letting Bill know #74 is a good one. When we were on the group tour of the factory during the Gathering last month we were in the mandolin room and Bill Collings was telling us how they keep notes on every mandolin they build. He had the notebook there so I asked him about mine (#74). He looked at the notebook a bit and then told the story about how he had an Austrian guy working there for a few months and he had come up with some weird code to identify each mandolin in the entries in the notebook. Short story is we couldn't figure out which one in the notebook was #74. Here's a picture David Ely took of me and Bill when Bill was relating this story to us.

Dang it, Allen, I don't even PLAY the stupid mandolin and your post and picture has me hankering for one just like yours.

Allen, what you know about your mando is far more important that what the Austrian wrote down. Beautiful!

David