1995 Monteleone Grand Artist

I think the Lloyd Loar-era Gibson F-5 mandolin is just about the most beautiful musical instrument I’ve ever seen. I love the way the curves and curls are visually balanced against the various points and angles and I can stare for hours at the delicate shading of the Cremona brown finish and the way it brings out the figure of the maple. The design is so perfect that luthiers just don’t monkey with it because, hey, how do you improve on perfection? Well, John Monteleone took on the challenge with his Grand Artist model and I think he came up with something that is just about as good. Monteleone developed his Grand Artist in the late 1970s and it was quickly embraced by by progressive pickers like David Grisman, Don Stiernberg and Mike Marshall.

His idea was to take the classic F-5 design and streamline it without cheapening it. His symmetrical headstock strips off the F-5’s points and curls and replaces them with an elegant art deco shape that would not be out of place on a D’Angelico New Yorker guitar. He also opened up the body curl, which gives the mandolin a little more interior space and helps improve the volume and bass response. And because the modern players he designed this mandolin for played on every part of the fretboard, Monteleone reshaped the body point near the neck to make it easier to reach the higher frets. I love the subtlety of his sunburst, as well, and the way the way the colors fade into each other.

I’ve been lucky enough to play a handful of Grand Artists over the years and they sound as good as they look. John Monteleone is years backordered and pretty much the only way to get one of his instruments in a reasonable amount of time is to find one used, like this one. It’s not cheap at $21,900, but I know it is worth every penny. If you’d like to own it yourself, the fine people at Lark Street Music would be happy to help you out.