congaplace.com

While browsing Motherland Music's website looking at their African percussion instruments, I found some interesting conga
drums. The congas are hand-made in Mali, West Africa from a solid piece of hardwood (Lingue or Gunie), much like the djembes they offer. An all-steel tuning system and calfskin heads are added on here in the US by Motherland Music. I thought these drums might appeal to someone who is looking for something unique. They also offer one-piece congas made of light weight wood as well as congas with a rope tuning system. Check them out at http://www.motherlandrhythmart.com/drums.htm. Scroll down towards the bottom, looking under "Drums from Mali"

Great mco, I checked that site... very very interesting!!! it also gives you an idea of how wide is percussions world, and how much we all owe to Mother Africa.
Anyway, if you are interested in handcrafted drums, check this out: VR Percussioni - it's all in Italian, anyway you wil see very beatiful congas made of the finest woods, finest handcraft, finest hardware and finest heads. For instance, they point out that they are only now using the wood they bought 15 years ago. Another very interesting feature is an electroacustic system they apply to some of their drums: you can see on one picture some wires coming out from the bottom of the shells of a set of congas: there's an internal miking system. As i stated in a previous post, unfortunately the prices are almost unaffordable, a normal conga can cost something like $ 900..
Well let me know what do you think about ...

Wow, Yalla, those VR drums are gorgeous! I don't read Italian (it's a shame as my mother's parents are Piedmontese) but the pictures on the website look beautiful. Maybe I can afford
one of their wood guiros or woodblocks. The Motherland Music congas and the VR congas each represent different ends of the spectrum of hand wood working, and are each beautiful in their own right.

Correct mco! Full respect for them all!
Well, maybe you can show VR's site pages to your mother and she can translate, can't she?
Have a nice day!

Well, just to add some more info... I asked some prices to VRpercussion and they are not as high as I thought: the congas with the electroacoustic equipment are sold at 610 euros each (same price for quinto, conga and tumba) - which makes something like 700 U$. It might sound quite expensive but you must think that with those drums you won't need to buy any mike, you just plug them and you're ready.
Unfortunately for you, they don't ship overseas...
But anyway, I don't think you'd buy an instrument without having checked it with your own hands, right?