I bought a Crafter three years ago, loved it at first, especially when plugged in, but being heavy handed, I broke (you won't believe this) two full sets of strings during Whitby folk week 2000!!!
I carried on playing it for a while using differing gauge strings.
Then it fell out of favour, I went back to my ancient Kentucky.
       This year I put the the Crafter and some other cheapo mandolins in part-exchange for a Paul Shippey carved top, which is wonderful!!
       As a starter mandolin, the Crafter is fine value for money, just lacks tone acoustically, the fretting on virtually all the models I've tried is good. The action does vary between instruments.
Go for it stig, you won't find a better mandolin for the price.


                                  mandomad