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mandolin -- Ronnie Barnes F-5 Master Model - $5,100 (Adelphi)
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When I was updating my insurance coverage in 2009, I queried Ronnie, who sent me a handwritten letter dated Sept. 8, 2009, stating "the replacement cost of your mandolin would be $6,500." My 2023 price (for local pickup only): $5,100. I WILL RESPECTFULLY CONSIDER ALL OFFERS.
In an obituary published just after Ronnie's untimely death at age 64 in 2019, BLUEGRASS TODAY called Ronnie "one of the most talented and creative bluegrass musicians ever to emerge from eastern Virginia...Ronnie also built fine flathead banjos, and exquisite mandolins. He was a deft and natural craftsman, whose day job prior to retirement was as a model maker for NASA..." I first became aware of Ronnie Barnes's mandolins when I was captured by the tone of one being played by Lou Reid on albums recorded with his band "Carolina" in the early-to-mid 1990s.
My Barnes Master Model has maple back and sides, Sitka spruce top, X-bracing, 9.5-inch radiused fingerboard, lacquer finish, fat frets, and Price tailpiece.
This mandolin has a few very minor blemishes, and very minor fret wear. It has had only light use (I am a mere living room dabbler). It has seldom been out of the house, and has spent most of the last 10 years in a safe. However, I have had a few opportunities to have the instrument evaluated by accomplished mandolinists. I took the Barnes the national convention of the Mandolin Society of America in 1998, where it elicited favorable comments from Butch Baldassari and Tony Williamson. Mandolin teacher and recording artist Tom Espinola, my son's mandolin teacher decades ago, characterized its tone as "silky." In 2007, Orrin Star picked on it and said it sounded like a "mature" instrument.
The instrument comes with a deluxe Calton case, in blue.
The mandolin is available for examination by serious inquirers, by appointment. Payment by cash or by secure wire transaction. Delivery by personal pickup only unless otherwise mutually agreed.
Please put a phone number in any emailed inquiry. This is an anti-spam measure. I do not respond to generic "do you still have it?" inquiries or others that I cannot validate.