Hey NewbieUkie, I think that you made an excellent purchase. A koa pineapple Mele is worth about 400$ new and shell inlays are somewhere between 200-300$. So I'd say that you payed about 355$ for a 600$ ukulele, nice steal!!!QUOTE]
Thanks much for the reassurance! As a guitar collector, I have a little more of an innate sense of a guitar's value in the secondary market, but I am so new at this "uke thing" that I don't have a handle on it yet. Certainly, many of the same rules apply....sold woods vs. laminates, etc, but others, like country of origin, (USA vs. everything else), seem to have less meaning.
In addition, there are quite a few very low priced ukes, which seem to actually do what many consider a passable job of being a very "playable" instrument, which maybe more than anything else, really contradicts the rules, if you will, of guitar collecting. Unfortunately, with guitars, you really get what you pay for, (most of the time), and the cheaper the guitar, the more likely you'll get an unplayable, toneless piece of junk, and I'm talking less than $500 here, which for a ukulele, will buy you a pretty nice instrument, from what I have learned so far!
So, I still have a lot to learn!
My first purchases, all within a week, were:
1. My Giannini Baritone, which is all solid mahogany and a nicely made instrument, although I truthfully fell like I am just playing a small guitar when I fool around with it, it doesn't feel or sound like a uke to me.
2. My Cordoba 25SK, which is a Koa Soprano that one of you guys gave me a nice deal on.....I felt I "hadda have" a Soprano, since that's the standard or traditional uke size from what I had read, and I am glad I bought it....nice craftsmanship,(solid woods, the debate about the authenticity of the Koa notwithstanding), nice tone, good deal, but again, I am learning about what I am going to "like", and the Soprano is a little small for me...I feel most comfortable so far playing my 3rd acquisition,
3. My GString Koa 6 String Tenor..(also purchased from a member here), a simply magnificent instrument, with beautiful solid woods, incredible build quality, and superb tone. This one is also easiest to play, (for me), and I find myself reaching for the Tenor 9 out of 10 times when I sit down to fool around with the uke, which is turning out like most of my new challenges to be nowhere near enough time as I would like. (or need!...it's not as easy to learn as you guys would have had me believe!)
I am really looking forward to getting the latest purchase, and this one is a "Concert" size, which I am hoping will be easier for me to play then the smaller soprano. It also looks like a nicely made instrument, but what I am saying here is that all told I have spend just a hair over a $1,000 for all FOUR ukuleles, (including the one I haven’t received yet), and I would be very hard pressed to find a SINGLE guitar in my collection that was purchased for LESS than a thousand dollars! So, I have this "trepidation", I guess, about whether I can expect quality for just a couple-three hundred dollars. The GString was a little over $600, but was originally closer to $1,000, I think, so I EXPECTED that to be really nice, and it was! I guess I have to re-learn and re-adjust my expectations with this new instrument!