Boring ukes?

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valde002

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I've been through many ukes over several years and have just sold an awesome older gloss Kamaka concert because I mainly play tenor. Am open to getting a nice tenor, so have been looking on the various retail sites for one. There used to be a whole lot of really cool Kanilea and Kamaka ukes for sale around this time. Koaloha and the occasional Koolau too. The woods on the current selection for sale over several sites seem to be kind of pale and bland in my opinion, compared to years past. Am I imagining this? Would love a nice dark Koa wood, or one with interesting wood pattern to it, but it seems like they are blah to me. It's probably a good thing, but have not been tempted to pulled the trigger on any.

Maybe 2021??
 
I think your impressions match mine. I love the deeper darker colored koa and many of the recent ones have been lighter. It may be that older aged woods that some shops had were used up or their dying/processing changed.

For temptation, consider visiting the Kanile'a site and looking at their D models, platinums, or customs. Here is a link:

https://www.kanileaukulele.com/product-category/shop/custom-shop/
 
I picked up a beautiful koa Kanile'a this spring, but I agree that a lot of what I'm seeing now is not visually inspiring. The nice ukes go really quickly, and the plainer ones are what we end up seeing. I just jumped on a KoAloha KTM-00, because out of 5 that were recently listed, one (and only 1) was really nice. And I've been looking and waiting for a really nice mahogany Tiny Tenor. Even these have been rather uninspiring.
 
I can definitely agree on that. It seems to me that Kamaka and KoAloha particularly save their best looking koa for their deluxe / more expensive models. I think KoAloha is the worst in this regard. Even some of their 25th anniversary models have really plain looking koa with almost no grain pattern. I was lucky to find a decent looking KoAloha for myself but you really have to look for it. In my experience, Kamaka is slightly better as they usually at least have some nice grain on their ukes. In my opinion, Kanile'a is easily the best. You can sometimes find really nice looking koa ukes from them that are supposedly "select koa", i.e., standard, but look much nicer. Same with the other grades, e.g., some deluxe koa can look as good as premium, etc. I have a Kanile'a that's standard grade koa but looks really nice with dark wood, very slight flaming, and a wonderful sapwood stripe in the middle.
 
I know you're all talking about K models at the moment, but even in the entry level market, there's definitely a trend away from the very dark antique finishes, such as those found on the Makala entry level ukuleles to much lighter stains of mahogany, and tan colors in acacia.

Interior design, I understand, is moving away from wood--both for cost and appearance, but dark cabinets have been out of style for 20 years. Remember some of those finishes from the 1970s and 80s?

But Koa is definitely at premium prices these days, and while it doesn't seem like the supply is drying up completely, there may not be the choice there once was.
 
Dohle said:
I can definitely agree on that. It seems to me that Kamaka and KoAloha particularly save their best looking koa for their deluxe / more expensive models. I think KoAloha is the worst in this regard. Even some of their 25th anniversary models have really plain looking koa with almost no grain pattern. I was lucky to find a decent looking KoAloha for myself but you really have to look for it. In my experience, Kamaka is slightly better as they usually at least have some nice grain on their ukes. In my opinion, Kanile'a is easily the best. You can sometimes find really nice looking koa ukes from them that are supposedly "select koa", i.e., standard, but look much nicer. Same with the other grades, e.g., some deluxe koa can look as good as premium, etc.
Click to expand...
I totally agree. KoAloha has some pretty bland looking koa ukes. Kanile'a seems to consistently use the nicest looking koa.
 
In general, I agree that the appearance of the wood for a lot of factory-built ukuleles has recently declined. My relatively-inexpensive KoAloha concert was built in 2015 and I'd put the wood up against a lot of the higher-end or custom-shop models currently available.

IMG_3214.jpg

IMG_3215.jpg
 
I'm wondering if reducing the amount wood stain reduces cost. I know that when I made a comment before about cost reducing with using semi-gloss vs older gloss finishes on the Kamaka, people got all offended. But then look at the higher models, they have gloss finishes while the lower ones have semi-gloss, so am I wrong? Perhaps the same is with the stain. Anyone know if there is a cost difference that would be significant enough to lessen the stain?
 
I wonder how much of it is because places are cranking out more ukes now? During this pandemic a lot more people seem to be picking up the uke, so maybe that affects it. Maybe the more interestingly grained wood is being really picked over. I don't think they would affect the custom luthiers as much because they probably have good wood stored away, but for the mass produced ukes I wouldn't be surprised if they're grabbing whatever.
 
I don't think they are boring. I've bought 3 Mahimahi in willow wood, one Everplay Thinline in Deadwood, 2 Geso in traditional woods but beautifully made.
The most boring ones are my Martin and vintage Just Povlsen in all mahogany.

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pol_pl_EVER-PLAY-LA6-21-ukulele-sopranowe-9760_9.jpg
 
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