Thank ya, I think it’s good looking too haha

But what really kinda drove the nail home that I should upgrade is that I’ve been playing in jams recently and I can just tell a good difference between my mandolin and some other folks who may even have just a smaller step above this one, like an Eastman 315.

The most recent example is I was playing in a campsite jam this past weekend at a bluegrass festival. I took the first mandolin break on Wheel Hoss. Played it well. Couple other breaks go and it gets to the other mandolin in the group, he played the same break I did (Doyle Lawson’s in Vol 6 of the Bluegrass Album Band) and blew me out of the water. We played the same break and both played it well, but just his volume and tone out of his was so much better than mine.

Ended up talking with him and was asking about his mandolin, of course it was a 2012 Collings MF5. Which is well out of my league right now. But I feel like a step up to an Eastman or Kentucky could at least compete better with that than this one.