Monday April 30 2001 1:04 PM EST
Foundation pays over $1 million US for Bill
Monroe's mandolin

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Bill Monroe’s battered and scarred mandolin, the instrument
on which a new American musical genre was created, is going to Monroe’s birthplace in
Kentucky as a million-dollar mandolin.

A newly endowed foundation in Monroe’s hometown of Rosine, Ky., signed a contract
last week to pay Monroe’s son $1.125 million for the instrument, outbidding the
Smithsonian Institution, the Country Music Hall of Fame and several private collectors.

The group is working to establish a $12 million museum in Rosine, where the “Father of
Bluegrass Music” grew up on a farm and learned to play the mandolin.

“I think my father would be proud that this legendary instrument that he loved so much is
going to the place where he was born and where he is entombed,” James Monroe said.

The mandolin has been safely stored in a bank vault in Nashville since Monroe died in
1996 at age 84. It’s the one Monroe played almost exclusively during the last 50 years of
his career.

“It’s the musical equivalent of having the one bat on which Babe Ruth hit all his home
runs,” said Campbell Mercer, president and executive director of the Bill Monroe
Foundation that bought the instrument.

Friday May 11 2001 11:59 AM ET
New Country Music Museum
Well-Stocked by Collector

As one example of the value of some of these items, [Marty] Stuart cited the recent sale
of bluegrass master Bill Monroe’s mandolin, which Monroe bought for $150 in 1943, to
the newly endowed Bill Monroe Foundation for more than $1 million.

The foundation, headquartered in his birthplace in tiny Rosine, Kentucky, outbid the
Smithsonian Institution for the battered old relic, earning Monroe’s son James a tidy profit.

The Gibson mandolin shows the scars of tribulations endured by some of country
music’s early stars. It had to be pieced back together after being smashed by van-
dals in 1985, and it survived being run over by a car and getting drenched by rain.

Monday April 30 2001
BILL MONROE MANDOLIN PURCHASED

The Bill Monroe Foundation in Rosine, Kentucky has purchased the bluegrass music
icon’s priceless Gibson mandolin. James Monroe, Bill’s son, transferred the title at an
area bank to Dr. Campbell Mercer, president and executive director of the foundation.

Mercer stated that James has in essence donated a substantial amount
to the museum in the form of a discount as the foundation purchased the in-
strument for $1.125 million in spite of its estimated value of near $4 million.
The mandolin will eventually call the yet-to-be constructed Bill Monroe Museum in Rosine
home.

Monroe's instrument, “the Stradivarius of mandolins,” as Mercer describes it is one of
approximately 170 F-5 model Gibsons. Monroe paid $150 for the instrument in 1943 and
it remained his primary instrument throughout his career.

The Bill Monroe Museum and the restoration of Monroe’s homeplace is still in the
planning stages and costs for the project are expected to reach $12 million. State and
federal grants and private tax-deductible donations will fund it.

Friday April 27 2001
Foundation buys Monroe’s mandolin for
$1.125 million

Mercer said the foundation was afraid that the price of Monroe’s mandolin could go as
high as $4 million if it went on the auction block.

The Country Music Hall of Fame and the Smithsonian Institution were also trying to get
the mandolin, the Tennessean in Nashville reported Thursday.

Thursday April 26 2001
Foundation Buys Bill Monroe’s Beloved Gibson F-5
“Stradivarius of Mandolins” Saved From the Auction Block

Although the instrument has been estimated to be worth as much as $4 million if
auctioned, Mercer says the foundation’s purchase price was $1.125 million. “When
James [Monroe] mentioned to me,” explains [Dr. Campbell] Mercer, “that he was
considering putting the mandolin up for auction at Sotheby’s, I immediately requested
a meeting with him. I felt it my obligation to bring that mandolin home to the state of
Kentucky. James has in essence donated a substantial amount to the
museum in the form of a discount.” Money for the purchase is coming from
various private funds, Mercer says.

Mercer describes Monroe’s instrument as “the Stradivarius of mandolins.” It is one of
approximately 170 F-5 model Gibsons, designed by master craftsman Lloyd Loar and
made between 1921 and 1923. Monroe bought his F-5 for $150 in 1943 from a barber-
shop in Miami. It would remain his primary instrument for the rest of his life and the
one featured in virtually all his recordings.

Thursday April 26 2001
New foundation in Kentucky wins
bidding for the worn mandolin that
changed Bill Monroe’s style and
inspired him to greater heights

James Monroe heard a lot of offers for the F-5 over the years. One guy offered a brand-
new custom bus worth a half a million dollars. He consulted Sotheby’s about an auction
but decided that was “too big a gamble.”

And the Hall of Fame in Nashville negotiated through two executive directors but couldn’t
secure a deal.

Executive Director Kyle Young said he was disappointed that the Hall of Fame couldn't
reach a deal with Monroe, but “if it can’t be in our place, I think it’s in a great place. We
would love to have it in our collection, but what it came down to was we could not afford
it.”

“Things have really changed. There’s a competitive marketplace out there (for
historic artifacts).”

“What we are going to do is develop for the first time in our history an acquisi-
tions fund. We need to get ourselves in position so that when something else
like this comes available, we’re prepared.”