I saw a mandolin that said US Strad on the headstock, or more accurately UstradS last night. I'm going back to check it out and take a pic now. The mandolin had f holes and an oval soundhole in the middle. Has anyone heard of this? I didn't turn anything up in my search. Thanks.
and a pic:
ha thats fascinating, I have seen one like this a few month back on german ebay.... I thought it was a selfmade thing like someone cutting an aditional soundhole in the top... so i dinīt bid on it assuming the instrument was ruined by the selfmade soundhole.... now you have another one and therefore we can assume this was done by the builder already... fascinating ! will check my hardisk later... maybe I stored a picture of the instrument
f holes and round hole, plus cloud tailpiece.... It doesn't get any better than that!!!!
I'm wondering if somebody was playing with a hole saw or if it actually came from the factory that way. I'll go with the former until somebody can find me another example. My track record hasn't been good lately on calling things on strange Strads.
I was wary of the hole saw issue as well. Also, the mandolin is really beat up and the owner is solid at $400. I feel I should be able to find one in better shape for that price, or less (send 'em my way!). That being said, this mandolin sounded quite good to me. Hollow, aged. I've been a guitar player for years, but just started mandolin, and admittedly its difficult to know if this sounds good comparatively - never having heard higher end mandos on anything except youtube through bad speakers. Compared to a The Loar LM400 I played as well it just sounded, well, different. Going through a bit of analysis paralysis with this mandolin vs new imports in the under $1k range thing right now, because of worries that more seasoned mando ears in a year from now would lead me in a different direction.
Without some sort of documentation that the f hole/oval hole Strad came from the factory that way we can only assume that it is a home modified instrument. If this is the case then $400 seems way out of line...
Mike + bmac you may want to re-read my post. As I stated I have seen another one on german ebay. Unfortunatly I didnīt store any pictures. But with 2 instruments having these very same appointments I donīt think itīs homemade!
"Mike + bmac you may want to re-read my post. As I stated I have seen another one on german ebay. Unfortunatly I didnīt store any pictures. But with 2 instruments having these very same appointments I donīt think itīs homemade!" Yes, I forgot your first comment on it. I wonder if that UstradS headstock logo was used only on export models... you don't see it often. And maybe that peculiar model was not sold in the US... Just speculation of course.
@ Ortsai: Was just looking at e.bay this morning and saw one there. Low bid so far, if any. I forget. Looks like the one I just got, but the seller is not saying if it has a solid spruce top. I'd hold out for that if you can. They really sing. Maybe ask him. regards.
here is example number 3 of this Oval and F Holes variant. I uploaded pictures to the Stradolin group pictures. http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-STRA...-/161129847865