Ironically, when I first started wanting to play a musical instrument as a 32 year old left-handed adult, one of the reasons I chose tenor banjo over mandolin is precisely because I could not name a single tenor banjo player. There was nothing in the way. Whereas for mandolin there was Jeff Austin, Sam Bush, Ronnie McCoury, Norman Blake, and David Grisman standing in the way. All of whom better than I would ever be so what's the point of even trying, right?
Tenor banjo was a clean slate. There was no one to feel inferior to. Secretly, I also knew that learning GDAE tuned "Irish" tenor banjo was kind of a stealth way of learning mandolin since both instruments are tuned the same way. Of course I would later learn about 4-string banjo players such as Elmer Snowden, John Carty, Angelina Carberry, Kieran Hanrahan, Kevin Griffin, Don Vappie, Cynthia Sayer, Manny Sayles, and Eddy Davis. Not quite the same though as I hadn't spent countless hours listening to or going to see these musicians play.
I did eventually get it in my head that I wanted a mandolin. In fact, I've gotten this in my head off and on several times over the last 19 years. I've stupidly ordered and subsequently sold more instruments than I'd like to think about. One mandolin that I should have held on to was a 2014 Redline Traveler pancake, frying pan, Army/Navy style flat-top mandolin that I bought new from Steve Smith. I regret getting rid of it. So after years of not having a legit mandolin, I couldn't pass up buying a used, "vintage", actual left-handed, side-dots and everything, Mid-Missouri mandolin that I happened to see for sale online.
Mid-Missouri mandolins are now called Big Muddy, but it's the same thing. These have always been made by luthier Mike Dulak, although I think now his son or nephew is starting to take over the build process. It's a simple flat-top, folk-style mandolin design that works well for Irish or old-time music and has remained mostly unchanged for many years. I reached out to Mr. Dulak and he confirmed that mine is from 2002, based on its serial number. It's an M-O model which I believe means it was made with mahogany wood back then.
To be honest, at first I didn't love it. It felt narrow, cramped, and hard to play, but that was because I was coming from the longer scaled tenor banjo and my fingers and brain just were accustomed to the shorter scale and double course strings. The intonation was off and I had a hard time getting the two A-strings to sound like each other. It also has some significant pick wear from the previous owner as well as a couple dry cracks. I almost re-sold it but decided to keep it and have a local instrument repair tech set it up for intonation, action, and a new set of tuners. I found out about Rubner tuners and bought the most inexpensive tuners they offer for A-style mandolins. That was the upgrade it needed.
Famous last words, but I don't think I want (or can afford) any other mandolins at this point. Mandolin is still a secondary instrument for me, as I want to always primarily identify as a tenor banjo player. But it's nice to have as an option to play at home and bring along to sessions. It's awesome to have found a used, made in the USA, real wood Mid-Missouri mandolin that was actually originally made to be left-handed, rather than a righty to lefty conversion. And after playing it a while, I don't think I would have wanted the custom wider neck that Mike offers as an option. The standard mandolin width is just fine.
Something I might want in the future is a mandola that I could tune DAEB instead of CGDA. Speaking of instruments that I've had and stupidly gotten rid of, I once had a Sawchyn Beavertail mandola that I barely played and then sold off. If only it had occurred to me that these could be tuned DAEB. I also once had a custom made Fletcher tenor guitar but sold it as well. Dumb. Fortunately my Kala tenor guitars sounds almost as good to my ears for one-tenth the cost. But that's another story.
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