I'm thinking of maybe learning the mandolin. I mean I guess I'd have to fork out lots of cash to buy one, but I'm a piano player so to be honest if a musical instrument costs less than $10,000 it seems cheap to me. I don't know anything about mandolins except that they sound purdy.
Mandolins are fucking tiny. I wanted to play one for awhile mostly because it is strung in the same way as a violin (GDAE) so I wouldn't have to re-learn scales for a differently strung instrument, but even with my skinny fingers it is a bit hard to play.
Recently I have fallen in love with the bouzouki. It is very similar to the mandolin in pretty much all respects - same sort of sound, similar tunings, four double-strings - except that the neck is a lot longer, which means that it's not like trying to play only over the 15th fret on guitar. It's a beautiful instrument and I would very highly recommend you look into it.
The man that I am commissioning is asking $1,000 for an extremely high quality piece that will take 6 months to make, so the cost shouldn't be too terrible, I don't think.
Barnymoo you posted before me!
Banjoes and mandolins aren't played all that similarly. Banjoes are generally fingerpicked and are acoustically quite loud, whereas you pretty much
have to play with a pick if you're going to try for mandolin. I generally hear only strummed chords on mandolin, but there is a bit of single note runs that are fun.