Nudie Cohn's Mandolin: Rare Country Music Artifact For Sale In Seattle

SEATTLE, WA - With a thread, needle, and a head full of flamboyant ideas, Nudie Cohn created the modern country-western music star. Cohn's brilliant stunning rhinestone suits were worn by everyone from Hank Williams to Gram Parsons, John Lennon, and John Wayne. Think of Elvis Presley's white suit from "Aloha From Hawaii" or a big white Pontiac Bonneville with steer horns attached to the hood - that's Nudie Cohn.

During his career, Cohn influenced the design of a number of a musical instruments. One of those, an electric mandolin, has appeared at Seattle's Emerald City Guitars. The mandolin is special because it features Nudie-style design flourishes, and because it was hand-built by a legendary guitar maker.

And for all those reasons, the instrument has been priced to sell at $400,000.

"To many people, Nudie Cohn is a god," said Emerald City's Trevor Boone, who met the owners of the mandolin at a guitar show in California. "It's just a total throwback old country mandolin."

The instrument dates back to 1953. Cohn was a mandolin player and owned a number of acoustic versions. Through the music industry, Cohn met Semie Moseley, a California guitar designer who made some of the most iconic electric guitars and basses of the mid-century era. Moseley and his Mosrite company made guitars favored by surf rock bands like The Ventures, and later musicians like Johnny Ramone and Kurt Cobain. Mosrite guitars stood out from other popular brands of the 50s and 60s due to their exaggerated Van Gogh-like body shapes and plastic embellishments.

In 1953, Cohn asked Moseley to custom build him an electric mandolin with all the appropriate flair, Boone said. When Moseley delivered the instrument several months later, he charged Cohn $2,500 - that's over $20,000 in 2017 dollars. According to legend, Boone said, Cohn later made a number of suits for Moseley and charged him $2,500 for them.

Cohn kept the instrument until the 1970s when he met a couple from the San Francisco area who were collectors of music memorabilia. Kosmo Cominos and his wife, Kathy, purchased several guitars from Cohn, and Cominos occasionally jammed with Cohn. According to an article about the mandolin in Vintage Guitar Magazine, Cohn one night after a jam session offered Kathy Cominos the instrument. She didn't hesitate, plunking down an undisclosed (but large) amount of cash for the mandolin.

After meeting the Cominos at a guitar show recently, Boone struck a deal to consign the one-of-a-kind mandolin at Emerald City.

Cohn died in 1984 at age 81, and his North Hollywood retail store closed in 1994. But his influence is still seen in modern music. Musician Jenny Lewis has performed in a white pantsuit decked out with rhinestone marijuana leaves. Fashion houses like Gucci have even reportedly been using Nudie inspiration recently.

Aside from non-historical instruments, Emerald City is popular among collectors and touring musicians from jazz guitarist (and Seattle resident) Bill Frisell to Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead. So there's a good chance that the store will find a buyer for Nudie Cohn's mandolin. Boone said it's also possible the mandolin will end up in a museum.

"It's probably going to go to someone like Johnny Depp," Boone half-joked. But there are only so many people out there with $400,000 and an appreciation for a custom-built electric mandolin that comes in a blue velvet case.

Images via Neal McNamara/Patch.com