Mike's Oud Forums

Khalife oud on ebay

peppeo77 - 5-23-2007 at 10:18 PM

I found this oud on the italian ebay. The seller says it's a gift brought from Syria, and he must sell it. He sent me an email telling that it's a khalifa's oud. Since I'm not an expert on recognizing if it's fake or not just from a picture, can you tell me guys what do you think about it?
Thanks oud fellas!
Peppeo.

peppeo77 - 5-23-2007 at 10:19 PM

...

peppeo77 - 5-23-2007 at 10:20 PM

and the face...

Melbourne - 5-24-2007 at 05:39 AM

Ciao Peppeo,

Its definitely a Khalifeh oud - the workmanship looks nice and clean too, perhpas it's an older model? from Ali's days? Unless the guys running the factory now realise that theres bad publicity and are finally getting their act together...In addition, no one would fake a Khalifeh I dont think, there's nothing really special about them, even the most authentic old ones could never be worth more than a few hundred dollars I'd imagine....

peppeo77 - 5-24-2007 at 06:26 AM

I agree with you. the seller is giving it for 300 euros. I don't think is such a great price...
Thanks Melbourne, ciao, Giuseppe.

excentrik - 5-24-2007 at 12:24 PM

actually, they were faking Khalifehs a few years back- they were the most exported ouds (non-pro) from Syria for a while- I've seen a bunch- even fake Fadels that were built in the same factory-

but yeah, the latest Khalifehs on Ebay and such havent looked all that bad- they really did re-vamp the craftmanship on their product.

unfortunately (unless Im wrong) no one here has one these latest "generation" Khalifehs, so who knows how they sound.

tarik

Melbourne - 5-25-2007 at 05:15 AM

Seems like a reasonable price....if you get to try it, and it seems to stay in tune, the neck doesn't move and sounds good why not. A few months back I had a cheepo khalifeh transformed into a professional oud. According to the lutheir who did the work, the oud had a nice bowl and the neck position was 100%, so we put a new cedar top on it and turned it into a floating bridge oud, and it seems to work fine. The sound is too perfect, so it doesnt have that brittleness that characterises the sound of the oud. Currently I'm getting new pegs fitted, but a pic is below...

Melbourne - 5-25-2007 at 05:19 AM

heres the pic...