# General Mandolin Topics > Vintage Instruments >  Washburn mandobass?

## mrmando

Now here's something a little different:

Attachment 83300

More info on eBay. Was this ever a production instrument? Don't recall seeing another like it.

----------


## Londy

hmm, no attachment but the ebay link works. WOW, it has 8 strings too!  That almost looks wrong or like the picture was fixed.  I have always liked bass...should have played it a long time ago.

----------


## Bill Snyder

See below,  :Confused:

----------


## Bill Snyder

While it may have been played I can't help but wonder if it was not an instrument used as a marketing tool since it says Washburn Mandolin in big letters on it.

----------


## pfox14

I'd call it a contra-bass mandolin. More of a novelty instrument than anything.

----------


## Tom C

> While it may have been played I can't help but wonder if it was not an instrument used as a marketing tool since it says Washburn Mandolin in big letters on it.



I agree. Especially since it has 8 strings.

----------


## Steve Ostrander

The player has it resting on the TP. Seems like it should have a spike on the bottom to raise it up to a more comfortable playing position. Perhaps the spike is missing or broken.

----------


## keef

Interesting - this is the companion to a huge Washburn guitar that L&H built, which sported the same large sticker. The text in the middle on that sticker says 'Best in the World'. L&H also made a similar sized banjo - both of these instruments are pictured in the Washburn book. I've never seen the big mando until now though. These three giants were made around the mid 1890s.

----------


## Charles E.

Thats gotta be one of the rarest tailpieces in the Mandolin world.

----------


## Jim Garber

Ah... so where in the world are all these Brobdingnagian instruments? or did they burn up in the mythical L&H fire?

----------


## Martin Jonas

That's presumably a publicity photo showing the Washburn instrument line-up, rather than an actual ensemble.  Every player plays a different instrument, which would make for a very unbalanced ensemble.  In that context, the supersized mandolin may indeed have been an advertising display more than an actual instrument.  I doubt that this was playable.  

Keef: were the other two instruments you mentioned (the giant guitar and banjo) actual production models, or advertising displays?

Martin

----------


## Jake Wildwood

Definitely an advert instrument. After the photo shoot this would've hung in a shop window to snag business.

----------


## mrmando

> Every player plays a different instrument, which would make for a very unbalanced ensemble.


You mean, like a bluegrass band?

----------


## keef

> Keef: were the other two instruments you mentioned (the giant guitar and banjo) actual production models, or advertising displays?
> 
> Martin


My initial assumption was that both were displays only. They are pictured on page 53 of the Washburn book. A very knowledgable source informed me with much certainty that the huge banjo was actually played by performer Tom Cleary at concerts, which I then stated in the book. If that banjo was in fact playable, then who knows about the guitar and the mandolin. 

(To be honest - I thought, and still do, that the two banjo players pictured with that large instrument were not Tom Cleary and some colleague, but are the concert duo Mays and Hunter, who were the most important and frequently employed Washburn banjo endorsers at the time. Those guys also LOOK like Mays and Hunter - but my source was very adamant...)

The people in the photo posted above do not look much like musicians... They're not displaying the Washburn line though - L&H did not make a Washburn bandurria or a guitar mandolin, and the zither in the picture looks pretty crude and does not resemble even remotely any of the Washburn zithers made at the time.

Hey Jim - I don't know where those instruments ended up. I'd say they collapsed under the tremendous string tension!

----------


## Jim Garber

> The people in the photo posted above do not look much like musicians... They're not displaying the Washburn line though - L&H did not make a Washburn bandurria or a guitar mandolin, and the zither in the picture looks pretty crude and does not resemble even remotely any of the Washburn zithers made at the time.


I highly doubt also that this photo was used for promotional purposes. More than likely these were L&H workers who maybe went outside on a lunch break to hang out and take a picture. So that bandurria and mandolinetto could have been American Conservatory which L&H did make. That zither BTW is an American hammered dulcimer which I am pretty sure L&H did not make. The mandolin bandjo in the top right could be a Weymann with that small head.

----------


## pfox14

It was a common practice to build the "world's largest" instruments for publicity purposes as evidenced by Bacon & Day's world's largest banjo

----------


## MikeEdgerton

Half a century later Harmony was not about to be out done.

----------


## Jim Garber

Harmony guitar.

----------


## Jim Garber

Large banjo from this blog - 1920 Clifford Essex.

----------


## MikeEdgerton

Oh boy, I win  :Cool: 

The again, I never knew about the Clifford essex.

----------


## pfox14

Advertised as the world's largest violin. Looks kinda like a the double-sized contra-bass Wagner invented.

----------


## Jim Garber

Here are a few more from a quick google search.

Plus a tiny working grand piano for good measure (no pun intended).

----------


## Jim Garber

> Oh boy, I win


Great minds run in the same gutter, Mike.  :Smile:

----------


## MikeEdgerton

The again there's Grand Guitar. 3 stories high. Anybody down in the Bristol area know if it's still open?

----------


## MikeEdgerton

> Great minds run in the same gutter, Mike.


And frequesnt some of the same websites as well.

----------


## mrmando

> Looks kinda like a the double-sized contra-bass Wagner invented.


I don't know about Wagner, but here is the Vuillaume octobass, which actually is a fully playable instrument.

----------


## Martin Jonas

> You mean, like a bluegrass band?


Sort of, if a bluegrass band had an unamplified ukulele in it next to the banjo player...

Martin

----------

