Yesterday I bought a 1930s f hole Strad-O-Lin on Ebay. $55 plus shipping... It spent most of its life in the sellers attic being chewed by mice and is in fact a real project. I bought it mainly to salvage the tuners and tailpiece but I think I can salvage the mandolin itself... The early ones are made of an extremely hard dense wood so that even the mice couldn't destroy it beyond repair. All they could do is round off the edges a bit and I think I can restore/rebuild lit... I hope so anyway... Three cracks in the front and none in the back. So with a bit of luck and a lot of work I should have a good player with a history for about $70 total. In the folk song era of the 1970s Stradolins were the "poor man's Gibson" and were saught after for their unusually good tone on an inexpensive instrument. In my opinion they were right.
I have completed repairing my Strad-O-Lin and it turns out to be a really interestng instrument with spruce top (very unusual for a Strad-O-Lin). It has very good sound and even with all its history of abuse it is a very attractive instrument.
