There seems to be an affinity between dolphins and ukuleles. I don’t know why dolphins are chosen so often over other animals. Makala ukuleles deck themselves out with dolphin bridges, there’s this custom ukulele from Todaro and this Tahitian ukulele.
Another animal on the uke: black bears. There are two new ukuleles from Duane Heilman of Black Bear Ukuleles. One’s a concert size the other a baritone. And there are also a couple of his old ukes available from other sellers a Kamaka style pineapple ukulele and a Lyon & Healy 5K Shrine replica with its distinctive bowed-out triangle shape.
After all their exposure from Jason Castro’s performance on American Idol, Oscar Schmidt are going all out with the koa OU280. At $649, it’s a big step up from the budget ukuleles they’re associated with. Also new from Oscar Schmidt is an electrified version of the OU5 (the ukulele played by Jason Castro).
Weymann ukuleles are best know for their banjos and banjo ukes but they also sold wooden ukes made, at certain times at least, by Martin. There’s one on eBay at the moment, and there’s not much argument that it’s a Martin.
Speak of the devil. There’s a rather fine Martin 5K up for sale at the moment… for $25,000. Seems rather excessive to me. Even David Bonsey didn’t go that far.
I love Todaro’s Akuleles, and I recently found out that his shop is pretty close to me. I have to pay him a visit.