Post #107594 by boutiki on Tue, Aug 10, 2004 5:03 PM

When Amy and I were in Hawaii for our anniversary in 2002 I was obsessed with getting a nice koa ukulele. I had been collecting cheap old ones at flea markets for a while (none of them sound that great except the mango wood Moana). I ended up finding a second hand concert uke made by Jerome Werner who makes them under the name "Valley Made Ukuleles". It has an excellent tone and a good volume. it was really reasonably priced (largely because I bought it from a mom who's kid had lost interest) compaired to all the other quality koa ukes I found.

I have been wanting to learn to play the ukulele for a long time now, but never having played the guitar or anything, I'm starting from scratch. I figured if I made the investment and got a "real" instrument I'd force myself to take the time to learn and practice. Well... we have been so busy with stuff since I got it (Tiki Quest, Exotica, work, life, having a baby...) that I still can't play a single song. I got the Jim Beloff book so I periodically torture Amy with some plinking, but I really want to be able to play the thing one day.

The label on my Valley Made says they do handcrafted koa and custom, their number is 696-5786 (I think the area code is 808). You might want to see what they would charge for one of their nice ukes.

-Duke