The recent good news from Joe Carducci is that although production is currently suspended, they do plan to bring them back to the Gretsch line in the near future! Even so, the new one is just as LOUD acoustically as the old one- that's a GOOD thing- These F4-style bodies can really project. I'll start gigging with the new one, and hopefully it will follow suit in the tone department. Finally, the older one is just slightly more "woofy" and rounder in the tone department than the new one, but I attribute that to the fact that it's been gigged heavily for 3 years now, and has opened up a bit. The newer one has smaller thumbwheels on the bridge, but they are both Fishman M300 bridges. It makes no difference in the scale length or feel, just an interesting difference. Also, the neck heel point on the older one is about 3/16" longer than the newer one. The older one (2014 model) has a lighter sunburst, and the newer one is notably darker.
A thorough hands-on inspection inside and out has revealed NO detectable flaws with this mandolin.Īnd since I'm a Gemini, I've nicknamed the pair. I've already added it to the database HERE.
It arrived this week, and I just spent most of this morning tweaking and setting it up. The timing of the sale was perfect, and I essentially bought a brand-new instrument for about 1/3rd of the original MSRP. I got additional pics before making the purchase to see if I could see any evident damage or blemishes. However, the seller dropped the price a little each week, and when Reverb had their 20% off Father's Day weekend sale, I took the plunge. I've owned MIRC instruments in the past, and have had ZERO problems with them, but there's always that wee little extra chance that you may get a "lemon." (MIRC stands for "Musical Instrument Reclamation Corp.", and has been discussed at length on this forum, HERE and HERE) I had been following one on Reverb for a few weeks, but it was an MIRC refurbished model, so I was a little hesitant at first.
I never saw any blow-out sales, and the secondary market for this model is almost non-existent. However, the market supply either was pretty low to begin with, or they got popular (in relative terms of Asian-built mandos) pretty quickly. I resolved then that I would find another one, as a stable-mate and backup to my first one. I was a little dismayed when I found out in January that production had been discontinued.
Many of you know how much I love the Gretsch 9350 Park Avenue mandolin- I've raved about them, written reviews, and some of you have even sampled the Park Avenue goodness of my first one at the French Lick and Nashville Roundups.
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