Buying my first Upright

[CindyB]

Can I jump on this thread?

The comments on Fretwell and Lemur have sent me to their websites looking for info on the Engelhardt EG9. Fretwell seems to understand the music I want to play, it sounds like they do a good setup, and they have a good price. (Of course shipping will affect the final price.) Lemur seems to be more Jazz and classical oriented and they are more expensive than Fretwell, but they replace the stained maple fingerboard with ebony and they are within driving distance (so I trade shipping charges for sales tax).

Does anyone have any thoughts on these differences? How much does it cost to ship a URB across the country?

[Johnny Atomic]

Originally Posted by CindyB

Can I jump on this thread?

The comments on Fretwell and Lemur have sent me to their websites looking for info on the Engelhardt EG9. Fretwell seems to understand the music I want to play, it sounds like they do a good setup, and they have a good price. (Of course shipping will affect the final price.) Lemur seems to be more Jazz and classical oriented and they are more expensive than Fretwell, but they replace the stained maple fingerboard with ebony and they are within driving distance (so I trade shipping charges for sales tax).

Does anyone have any thoughts on these differences? How much does it cost to ship a URB across the country?

The EG9 has a ebony board stock, not maple or rosewood.

shipping should be about $125 to $200 depending on who you buy it from, who they use to ship. although maybe more now due to fuel prices, (it's been a year and a half since i've bought mine and things have changed )

[Gearhead43]

Fuel prices are dropping right now though!

[sXeMike]

Originally Posted by CindyB

Lemur seems to be more Jazz and classical oriented and they are more expensive than Fretwell, but they replace the stained maple fingerboard with ebony and they are within driving distance (so I trade shipping charges for sales tax).

Fretwell doesn't sell Engles with dyed maple. I think he only sells the Jatoba and Ebony models.

[CindyB]

I'm not sure where I got that, but one of the on-line catalogs said something about a maple finger board and the Lemur web site makes a big deal about how they sell the ES9 with a solid ebony fingerboard. The Engel website makes it really clear that it's an ebony fingerboard.

So now the big project is getting the money together to get one and then actually learning how to play it!

[sXeMike]

Englehardt does make basses with dyed maple fingerboards. They call them ebonized or hard maple. Try to stay away from them. Jatoba or Ebony is the way to go if you buy new.

I'm not sure what models come with what. I think the lower models come with either maple or jatoba and the upper models come with ebony.

[Gearhead43]

The older EC1s like mine have rock maple boards. As did most Kay C1s.

The newer reddish colored EC1s have Jatoba, as do the EM1s.

The EG1 EG9 ES1 and ES9 all have Ebony.