2019 Ruhland A-5 Mandolin – SOLD

$4,500.00

Excellent handmade A-model mandolin from Matt Ruhland. It sounds like a much more expensive mandolin.

Out of stock

Description

Exc condition  •  SN: 53
1-pc back  •  1-pc top
Noble Fir bracing  •  Flat fingerboard

This 2019 A-5 mandolin from Matt Ruhland is quite a special mandolin. It was built by Matt Ruhland to be his own personal instrument to take to jams and festivals, and also for product sample as a prototype of sorts (like the use of hard Noble Fir bracing). It was completed in 2019 and used by Matt Ruhland for a year or so. He took advance orders for Ruhland mandolins from showing this mandolin. Then… in mid 2020, Matt’s good friend and close neighbor cajoled him into selling it to him. That close friend of Matt’s is also a long time customer of ours… so now it resides here at the House of Fine Instruments.

We are on order for a steady string of Ruhland mandolins over the next years. But the supply is just so tight that this is the only Ruhland A model I know of that is available until the next batch in May/June 2021. This is a great mandolin. The tone is very developed, with a quick sure attack and room-filling presence.

One-piece Red Maple back, one-piece 100 year old hard Sitka Spruce top, which has been further stiffened by employing hard Noble Fir bracing. Sugar Maple 2-pc bookmatched neck. Ebony peghead overlay and flat Ebony fingerboard. Peghead has former Ruhland pearl logo of “r” as a hammer, sitting on a pedestal. Fingerboard has large pearl dot inlays and truncated double-cut fingerboard

Peghead is bound with single cream or ivoroid binding. Fingerboard is bound with ivoroid that shows a black accent line at the sides, as well as black side dots. Ivoroid binding around body shows black accent lines at top and back. Tortoise abbreviated pickguard with ivoroid/black/ivoroid bindings.

This mandolin has wonderful tone and great playability. Matt Ruhland is one of those builders that tends to attract the best player in the area to buy one. That is certainly true in our experience. There were 8 or 9 Ruhland mandolins in the hands of good players in Weiser, Idaho at the National Oldtime Fiddle Contest recently. So… these are already “vetted” by great players as to being high level professional mandolins. They are intensely handmade though, and are in limited supply. For instance, we will only get one Ruhland F in December/January, and two Ruhland A’s, between now and June, 2021…

Comes with Saga shaped light flight case.