The Lore of the Loars – The Gibson F5 Master Model Mandolins

In June of this year, bluegrass mandolin players worldwide celebrated the 100th anniversary of the first Loar-signed Gibson F5 Master Model mandolin. OK, “celebrated” may be too strong a word; perhaps “noted” would more accurately describe the festivities. But the occasion was worthy of note-on June 1, 1922, Gibson’s “acoustic engineer” Lloyd Loar signed and dated the first Gibson F5 mandolin. The Loar-signed Gibson mandolins were later made famous by Bill Monroe, who made most of his iconic music on one. This column discusses the Loar F5 mandolins.

First, a little background. At the turn of the 20th century, for a decade or two, America was in the grip of a mandolin mania. Mandolin orchestras as well as smaller mandolin bands playing mandolin arrangements of classical and popular music and everything in between were the rage. At that time, just before recorded music became widely available, people who wanted music had to make it themselves, and mandolins were ideal for homemade music. Easily portable and tuned the same as a fiddle (GDAE low to high), with eight strings (four courses of two strings tuned in unison) rather than the fiddle’s four, the mandolin was ready made for amateur music making. The mandolin strings are plucked with a pick, rather than bowed as a fiddle, and the mandolin (unlike the fiddle) has frets. Both pick and frets make a mandolin much easier than a violin for a beginner to play. Like the violin family, which included violin, viola, cello, and bass viol, the mandolin family included mandolins, mandolas, mandocellos, and mandobasses. As the smallest and highest pitched of these mandolin family instruments, the mandolin usually carried the melody.

The mandolin is a member of the lute family and originated in Italy. Classical mandolins had flat tops, short necks, and a large bowl-shaped back that served to amplify the notes. These bowl-backs, also known to bluegrassers as “taterbugs,” were the dominant style of mandolin for most of the instrument’s history. But Orville Gibson, a native of Chateaugay, NY, who founded the Gibson Mandolin and Guitar Company of Kalamazoo, MI, developed a mandolin whose top and back were carved and arched, like the top and back of a violin. Fortunately, Gibson introduced his new mandolin design at about the same time as the mandolin craze was ramping up. The Gibson mandolins projected very well and became popular. Gibson also made guitars and the other mandolin family instruments, and the company Orville founded was well positioned to outfit the period’s many mandolin orchestras. Although Orville Gibson died in 1918, the company he founded over a century ago still makes mandolins and other instruments today.

In the early days, Gibson made two styles of mandolins: a simple “A” model, with a teardrop shaped body, and a fancier “Florentine” model that had a curved body scroll and two or three body points. Both styles had oval soundholes in the middle of the top of the instrument. Differences among models of the “A” or “F” style reflected differences in trim and woods used. Before the introduction of the F5 model in 1922, Gibson’s high end mandolin was the F4, a Florentine style mandolin with a red (Adirondack) spruce top, maple back and sides, an oval soundhole, and a fancy inlay and the “The Gibson” inlaid in pearl on the peghead.

The “Gibson” Mandolin, Style “A-4” and “F-2”

Gibson mandolins were considered top of the line instruments and were played by many of the day’s leading professionals. One of these music professionals was Lloyd Allayre Loar, whom Gibson hired in 1919. Loar became Gibson’s acoustic engineer. In this capacity, Loar designed a new “F” style mandolin, called the F5 Master Model. Loar also designed other mandolin family instruments and a guitar in the Master Model line, including the L5 archtop guitar made famous by Maybelle Carter of the Carter Family.

The F5 Master Model mandolin became the top of the Gibson mandolin line. Loar wasn’t thinking about bluegrass, which didn’t exist in 1922. Rather, he wanted his mandolin to cut through and be heard more clearly above other instruments in the mandolin orchestra or other ensemble. Toward this end, Loar’s F5 design made several important innovations. First, the oval soundhole was replaced by f holes on either side of the mandolin bridge, similar to but larger than those on a fiddle. Second, the neck of the mandolin was lengthened; since the scale length (the distance between the nut and the 12th fret) did not change, the longer neck had the effect of positioning the mandolin bridge in the center of the top rather than closer to the tailpiece, as with the F4. Third, the part of the mandolin fingerboard that extended over the body was raised off the top of the mandolin so as not to impede the vibration of the top. The fingerboard extension on all prior Gibson mandolins had been glued to the mandolin top. In addition, Loar braced the tops of the F5 mandolin with two roughly parallel spruce struts glued to the inside of the top on either side of the bridge. These innovations all made the F5 louder and more percussive than the earlier Gibson mandolins.

The first Loar-signed F5 mandolin known to exist today is number 70281, dated June 1, 1922. It is estimated that approximately two hundred of them still exist. The known Loars are documented at the Mandolin Archive website (mandolinarchive.com) along with other vintage Gibsons and mandolins made by a few contemporary builders. In December 1924, Loar left Gibson; the latest known Loar-signed F5, number 80417, is dated December 1, 1924 (Numbers and dates are from the Mandolin Archive website).

Unfortunately for Loar and Gibson, by the time the F5 appeared on the market, the mandolin boom was receding, and the F5 was not a best seller. It didn’t help that the F5 was priced at $250, with a case available for an extra $25. It seems a bargain given today’s prices (noted below) but $275 was a lot of money 100 years ago, approximately $4,432 in 2022 dollars (per saving.org; a lot of money but still a bargain today given what Loars actually sell for now).

So matters stood until Bill Monroe bought his Loar F5 mandolin in the 1940s. Bill had already recorded 60 sides with his brother Charlie as the Monroe Brothers between 1936 and 1938 and 16 sides with the Blue Grass Boys in 1940 and 1941. In those recordings and his personal appearances, Monroe played a 1930s Gibson F7 mandolin. The F7 was a good sounding mandolin but on a close listen to the recordings Bill made with it, one can hear that it lacked the pop and clarity that Bill was later to obtain with the Loar.

Monroe’s Loar, likely the most famous mandolin in the world, is number 73987, signed by Loar on July 9, 1923. Loar signed a number of other F5 mandolins on that date and July 9 Loars are especially coveted by bluegrass pickers. Bill told mandolin innovator David Grisman the story of how he came to own the Loar. Monroe was in Miami, window shopping, and noticed the mandolin for sale in a barbershop window for $150. The price, $100 less than the instrument sold for new two decades before, reflects the relative lack of popularity of mandolins at the time. Monroe tried the mandolin, liked it, and bought it. Tom Ewing, who recounts the story in his biography of Bill Monroe, states that Bill bought the mandolin early in 1945 and that it was then in pristine condition. A photo of Bill with the mandolin around this time confirms that the mandolin then looked almost new. It didn’t look that way long.

Bill first recorded with the Loar in early 1945 and the difference it made to his playing and sound was immediately apparent. Compare his mandolin blues called “Honky Tonk Swing,” recorded on the F7 with the Blue Grass Boys in 1941, with “Blue Grass Special,” another mandolin blues recorded with the Loar at the 1945 session. Bill’s playing on the F5 is clearer and punchier, and because each note was so distinct (Bill said the mandolin had good “separation”), Bill’s technique evolved to take advantage of what the F5 could do. By way of comparing the F5 sound to the sound of an old F4, which was the high end Gibson mandolin before the introduction of the F5, listen to Bill playing “Monroe’s Hornpipe,” recorded in 1958 on a borrowed F4 while his Loar was in the shop (mandolin break starts at 0:29). There’s no mistaking that Bill is the picker, but the notes on the F4 sound tubbier and not as percussive as the notes on Monroe’s Loar in “Blue Grass Special.”

Bill Monroe played Loar number 73987 for the rest of his life, and when Bill died in 1996 the mandolin had been through a lot. He said that to get the right tone in a mandolin, “you have to whip it like a mule.” Bill followed his own advice. He removed the pickguard, accidentally broke off the peghead scroll, scraped off a coat of lacquer that Gibson had applied without asking him, and generally beat the stuffing out of it. In the 1980s, after the peghead had finally been repaired, a vandal broke into Bill’s home and smashed the mandolin to pieces with a fireplace poker. Gibson’s top mandolin luthier, Charlie Derrington, lovingly and painstakingly restored it, and remarkably, after all that, it still had that Monroe sound.

Bill Monroe single-handedly created the boom in Loar-signed Gibson F5 mandolins. By the late 1940s, as other musicians were beginning to play music in the style that came to be called “bluegrass,” mandolinists were already searching out Loars like Bill’s. One of the first was Pee Wee Lambert, who recorded on his Loar F5 with the Stanley Brothers early in their career. Lambert emulated Monroe’s singing style and mandolin style. The value of the Loar mandolins began a slow climb. Around 1960, another Monroe protégé, Frank Wakefield, bought one for $150, the same price Bill had paid for his in 1945. Frank said, “I gave [the seller] the money and he practically threw it at me.” But by the end of the 1960s, the price had increased to around $1,000, and it continued to soar during the 1970s and 1980s. By this time, other bluegrass mandolin virtuosos like Bobby Osborne, Herschel Sizemore, and Rick Skaggs were playing Loar F5s, and for bluegrass mandolin players, once you had one, your search was over. In the early 1990s a decent July 9 Loar went for around $45,000, but by 2008, when the market peaked, the asking price on a July 9 Loar hit $250,000. After the 2008 crash, the market pulled back some, and asking prices today range from $120,000 to $175,000, although at those prices they seem to linger on the market.

So is the Loar mystique genuine, or does it simply reflect a herd mentality? I believe it’s real. Certainly mandolin virtuosos like Chris Thile and those mentioned above think so. Thanks to the kindness of several Loar owners, I have had the good fortune to play a number of Loars over many years. They have been among the nicest sounding mandolins I have ever had in my hands. They don’t all sound the same but they all have power, clarity, and beautiful tone. In the right hands, they sound like nothing else. At current prices, the vast majority of bluegrass mandolinists will have to enjoy the Loars in those right hands, which sounds mighty fine.

4 Responses

  • Great article, and a wonderful find of the David Grisman video playing the infamous “Parrot”. I remember when that mandolin hit the market!

    A thing potentially of interest to the HVBA members might be how many Loars (and other great mandolins) were owned in the Northeast USA. These were not, generally, “country music” instruments when they were first made. They tended to find first owners who were classical musicians around cities with large entertainment markets. Bluegrass mandolinist Jesse Brock has just acquired a Loar whose first home was Hartford CT! I know of Loars found in New Hampshire, several from Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Nova Scotia, New York of course, New Jersey, etc. There are a LOT of gaps in the series of serial numbers from 1922-24, implying that there are yet-unfound Loars lurking in attics and under beds all around us.

    You’re right about the market prices having peaked in 2008. The most famous buyer that year was Chris Thile with his MacArthur Genius prize in his pocket. Ouch! Current pricing on the SEVERAL Loars for sale by vintage dealers seems to be pushing hard to break below $100,000, for those in best condition. Now even that is basically a ridiculous price for a bluegrasser. But the BEST current mandolin luthiers are getting $25,000 for their top models (which are out and out Loar copies). Gibson’s Custom Shop is cranking out their repro of the Loar which they call the F5 Master Model, priced around $15,000.

    And then there are “all other” Gibson pre-war F5 mandolins made AFTER 1924. They seem to be priced from $35,000 to maybe $80,000. These were made in VERY small numbers as the mandolin “boom” was over by 1925. Some of them are MIGHTY NICE. But they’ll never be “Loars”.

    I can easily remember prices of Loars acquired by friends. It seems Joe Val got his in the very late 1960s for around $2000. At the Berkshire Mt. Bluegrass festival in the late 1970s a guy was walking around showing his Loar for sale at $8000. Ron Thomason of the Dry Branch Fire Squad bought it. Then a friend of mine bought one he encountered at the Peaceful Valley festival in Delaware County for $13,000. I was offered one shortly thereafter at the Wind Gap festival in PA, priced at $25,000 (I passed!) Another friend bought one from a music store in Albany a few years later for $38,000. Then in the late 1990s a pro I knew bought one that Gibson had done a bad refinish job on, and he paid $80,000 and considered it a bargain! And so forth til the peak asking price hit $250,000 just before the mortgage crisis and the market crash followed by recession. It’s been only “down” since then.

    I enjoyed your article VERY much Andy. Great job.

  • Thanks Dick, and thanks also for all the details about the Loars found in the Northeast and also about those sales. I remember the Albany one; a July 9 that needed some work (which it later had), but it sounded fine indeed.

    • FWIW: Joe Val purchased #72207 in 1970. Bob French was thinking of buying it, but there several close friends of Bob & Joe who agreed it was time for Joe Val to have a “worthy tool for his trade”. So Bob took Joe to see it and the deal was made. The general consensus (ca. 1981) was that Joe paid $750 for it. Definitely $700-‘something’.

      That Loar was sold to a shop in Vermont for quick cash by a local man. Treble-side tuners were missing. Luthier-repairman Kenneth Miller did the initial setup for Joe at his shop in Maine. Ken tweaked the setup again in 1972. The rest is history. Joe first recorded with it on his 1972 Rounder album.

      I bought it from Joe’s wife in January 1986. Several bidders were hot on its trail. The highest bid from Japan. A mutual friend called me, as did Joe’s best friend who lived up the street from Joe. I offered $2k more than the highest bid at the time. I didn’t find out until I went to pick it up that Joe had told his wife that he’d like me to have it if I ever “came looking”. I didn’t have the money at the time, but several musicians were pushing me to get it, etc., etc. I ended up borrowing half the money and, in the end, I am glad so many people talked me into it. Joe and I were friends away from the music; fishing pals and so. That meant more than the instrument to me.

      I didn’t need or want a Loar but Joe’s was one of 3 which I thought I would like to play if ever that opportunity surfaced. Sad to say, I never thought in a million years it would be so soon. Too soon.

      I have its entire history documented. Lots of photos, live recordings and other items of Joe Val came my way since 1986. It has been an honor to care for Joe’s mandolin all these years. However the time for me to pass it on has come. That mandolin has been a solid workhorse since the first day Joe performed with it. Never an issue with it — and it was played hard and often; it also has traveled the world and back again.

      My main objective in selling it was to make certain it went to someone who would play it, and most of all know how to care for it. Since I let the word out years ago that it was available, I’ve refused 4 buyers. Wasn’t comfortable handing it over to them for multiple reasons. The most ridiculous reason was a guy chomping at the bit to install a pickup and volume-treble-bass knobs in the top “just like Bobby Osborne”.

      It took time, but I have found the right person. An amazing luthier who has spent years studying and restoring Loar mandolins. I first met him when he visited me in the Netherlands in 2009 for hours of ‘alone time’ with Joe’s mando; measuring, photographing, note taking, etc. He recently told me he found the “recipe” for Lloyd Loar’s earliest finishes.

      Anyway, he’s also a great — no, an astounding — musician. But his ability to care for it and keep it healthy is what gives me satisfaction and comfort more than anything else. Joe’s mandolin will now live in the Czech Republic beginning sometime in February 2023.

      Incidentally, its 100th Birthday will be February 26, 2023.
      I plan on a celebration of sorts.

  • Thank you very much for posting this detailed and very interesting history of Loar #72207. Thank you also for seeing that it will be with a worthy caretaker. That mandolin made a lot of great music in Joe’s hands and yours.

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