SRT FT-5 9

SRT FT-5 #9
Type	Mandolin
Serial	9
Year	2023
Owner	Justin Myles Holmes
Construction
Body	F-style
Top	Maple
Back/Sides	Maple
Neck	Maple
Fingerboard	Ebony
Electronics
K&K Twin Fusion
Add details & photos

SRT #9 is the primary stage and studio mandolin of Justin Myles Holmes. It appears on Holmes' second album-length bluegrass record, 4masks, and has appeared at his stage shows in the USA, Europe, and Tuva. It has also been played on stage by Jake Stargel, Jakub Vysoky, and Kyle Bestape.

It was purchased by Holmes new, directly from luthier Steven Thomas at the Seman Violins booth at IBMA 2023.

SRT #9 was made at the Seman Violins workshop in Skokie, IL in 2023, and modified soon after purchase by Seven C Music to incorporate the K&K Twin Fusion electronics.

Russian Security Encounter

• Main Story: User:JMyles/Through Russian Passport Control With A Song

In 2025, Holmes traveled to Tuva to participate in a Tuvan Throatsinging Masterclass. While transiting the border from Mongolia to Russia, he was interrogated for several hours by Russian security, and subsequently Russian customs. According to Holmes, customs agents took dozens of photographs of SRT #9 and asked questions about it, using a translation app, for about two hours. He says he was asked to prove its date of manufacture and purchase, its materials, the modification to add electronics, and to prove that he was capable of playing it.

He was given a form, with a few red Russian stamped seals, and says he was told that the mandolin had been approved for entry, but to keep the form with it at all times.

• 
  Holmes holding SRT#9 while playing a tin whistle at a jam in rural Tuva.
• 
  The front of a Russian security form, given to Holmes to keep with SRT #9 during his travels in Tuva.
• 
• 
  Jake Stargel (left) plays SRT #9 at a house party in Breckenridge, Colorado in 2025.
• 
  Kyle Bestape (second from left) plays SRT#9 at GFEL 2025