Jed - I'm hopeing that Charlies has improved since the last time I was there. Several years ago I bought a Mid-Missouri mandolin. When I picked it up the salesman I had talked to over the phone said he had a lot of trouble getting the thing tuned. It turned out he had tried to tune it EADG from low to high like the bottom four strings of a guitar. A mandolin is tuned EADG from high to low. No wonder he had trouble. Their pro NRA stance on their website leaves me a little cold too.

The Guitar Center in Arlington was equally clueless about mandolin instruments. For almost two months they left a nice Weber octave mandolin on the wall with only 6 strings on it. I pointed it out several times to a salesman. Eventually I saw they had only replaced the two broken strings - not the whole set - and the replaced strings were wrapped the WRONG way around the poles. It still makes me cringe to think about it.

The place I love is Mandolin Bros - and Dusty Strings is a close second. Both places manage to have salespeople that are friendly, smart, not condesending, and drop by often enough to see if you have a question without perching on your shoulder. Both stores are top notch. Great selection too.

Mt first purchase from Mandolin Bros was just after I had returned from the Dallas Guitar show. I had cash in my pocket and wanted to try an OM Martin. I couldn't hear it because the kid a few feet away from me was playing Iron Man by Black Sabbath at 11. I asked the salesman if he could ask the kid to turn it down for a few minutes. He said he couldn't do that because they didn't want to offend a customer. I got up, left with the cash in my pocket, and went home and called Mandolin Bros. I live in Texas but shop in New York.