South Hills - Posted - 08/07/2011:  05:14:04

Received my new Recording King resonator mandolin from Elderly Instruments last week.  Unique but probably not for everybody.  It is a fun instrument to play and is a welcome addition to my growing number of mandolins.  It is a decent reproduction of the pre-war resonators at a very reasonable price (but definitely not a National).  Includes a nice nylon covered rigid foam case.  I must have bought the last one they had in stock. elderly.com/new_instruments/it...998CM.htm 

Does anybody know if Recording King discontinued production of the champagne matte finish model?

Edited by - South Hills on 08/10/2011 14:10:03

South Hills - Posted - 10/25/2011:  04:46:58

I'm answering my own question.  Elderly has the matte finish RK resonator mandolin in stock now elderly.com/new_instruments/na...998CM.htm

Ben Venuti - Posted - 10/25/2011:  09:29:38

I bought myself a cheap dobro a while back and purchased and installed a Quarterman cone and spider for not that much money, it turned in into a pretty good sounding dobro at a fraction of the cost of a real one. I was in a shop one time and they had a Recording King reproduction of a National mandolin and just by chance they had a real one from the 30's. I got to make a side by side comparison and your right---it's not a National but it's a pretty nice looking box and I bet it would be close if it had a higher quality cone. I think they wanted close to 2g's for the National ,my thinking at the time would be to do what I did to my dobro to the Recording King and got it done for a 25% of the cost of the National.

Jim Yates - Posted - 10/25/2011:  20:13:36

Ben, Was your Dobro a Hound Dog?  I believe that is the cheapest Dobro, but I believe it has the same cone as the higher priced Dobros. 

Regal, Johnson and Recording King resophonic guitars are much cheaper, and while they're not Dobros, they might benefit from a Quarterman cone.