Review: The Luthier’s Mercantile Catalog for Stringed Instrument Makers

Reviewed by Frederick Battershell

Originally published in American Lutherie #4, 1985 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000



The Luthier’s Mercantile Catalog for Stringed Instrument Makers
The Luthier’s Mercantile
P.O. Box 774, 412 Moore Lane
Healdsburg, CA 95448
$19.50 + $3.50 (1999)

If confession is good for one’s soul, then I must come forward and confess: I am an unabashed bibliophile! Yup! My library/bedroom is piled from floor to ceiling with books, catalogs, brochures, broadsides... anything at all connected (even remotely) with instrument making, music theory, cooking, philosophy, woodworking, boat building, toolmaking, and on and on. These are read and reread; each time they yield small portions of knowledge, personal insight, and genuine enjoyment.

While I’m on the subject of genuine enjoyment, let me tell you about The Luthier’s Mercantile Catalog for Stringed Instrument Makers. Here is either a book that wants to be a catalog, or a catalog that wants to be a book. The staff at TLM deserve a loud bravo! for their combined efforts at getting this catalog together in a thoroughly enjoyable and readable format.