Simon Mayor Joins The Eastman Mandolin Owners Club
Simon Mayor wrote….
I first heard of Eastman mandolins on a trip to the States in 2001. A mandolinist friend had attended a trade fair and had seen a well known luthier wandering by looking deeply glum. “Why the long face?” he had asked. “I’ve just tried the finest oval-hole mandolin I’ve ever played” came the reply, “and it’s made in China and I can’t match the price”.
A couple of years went by before I came across these mandolins in the UK and I had the chance to spend a happy hour trying out a variety of models. Here were truly impressive re-creatons of vintage American mandolins, and it took me matter of seconds to conclude that Eastman had banished forever any lingering prejudices that Chinese made instruments are of poor quality.
The playability was consistently good, but for me, the most interesting thing was that no two examples I played were similar. Each had its own character, its individuality, exactly the hallmarks you would expect from hand built mandolins but at prices more associated with production-line instruments.
Simon Mayor’s own web site is www.mandolin.co.uk