I'm clear on the difference between an A-style and an F-style mandolin. But I don't know the significance of the numbers that follow the letters. Please educate me.
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I'm clear on the difference between an A-style and an F-style mandolin. But I don't know the significance of the numbers that follow the letters. Please educate me.
Someone else might have a better answer, but to my knowledge the short answer is... 4 = oval hole & 5 = f-holes
The numbers refer to the appointments.
A styles Junior, [plain] A, A-1, A-2, A-3, and A-4 all have oval holes, and the amount of trim increases in order from Junior [no trim to speak of] to A-4 [the most trim]. Numbers 5 and above are usually F-hole mandolins.
F-2's and F-4's are oval hole mandolins, with style 4 having more trim. F styles 5 and above are F-hole mandolins. The F-5 is Gibson's uppermost mandolin model, even though there are other models with higher numbers.
There are also Gibson "A" mandolins with f-holes, the A-40 and A-50 being the most common. The A-50 had a solid, carved back; the A-40's back was laminated. There were also A-0 and A-00 mandolins in the 1930's and '40's; the A-0 had an oval hole, the A-00 started out with an oval hole, changed to f-hole in 1934.
The A-5 (other than the single f-hole example produced in the '20's Loar era) was, schizophrenically, two unrelated models. Starting in 1957, for over a decade it was a two-point, oval-hole model. It then changed to a quasi-F-model "lump scroll" also with an oval hole.
Those looking for consistency and logic in Gibson's model designations, may find themselves confused. I often am.
Gibson Serial Numbers
What do the Gibson model numbers stand for?
This information originally appeared on CoMando Listserv.
A - ovoid mandolins
B - banjo - also RB - resonator banjo
C - classical guitar
E - electric instruments ES= electric Spanish guitar
F - florentine mandolins
G - guitar (steel string)
H - mandola
J - jumbo guitar
K - mandocello
L - guitars
J = mandobass
O= (orchestra?) guitar
U = harp guitar
TL = tenor lute (4 or 8 string tenor neck on f- hole pear shaped mandola body)
RB - Regular (5-string) banjo
MB- mandolin banjo
TB = tenor banjo
PB= plectrum banjo
CB = cello banjo
UB = ukulele banjo
J = jumbo guitar
C=classical guitar
B = guitar (B-25)
TG= tenor guitar
EB= electric bass guitar
EH = electric hawaiian guitar
ES = Electric Spanish guitar
Now part of an old and largely non-maintained area of the Cafe most people don't even know exists, The Mandolin Glossary.
Sometimes if you can see the instruments you can see the difference. Dan Beimborn's mandolinarchive.com gives you an opportunity to search not only for instruments by serial number but you can also look at models and such by year.
Look for the listings where there are images available.
http://www.mandolinarchive.com/perl/...ndolins.pl?all
Confusing isn't it. Not really the more familiar you become the more it makes sense.
Also A (and F) designation is reserved for arch top/back mandolins?Quote:
Originally Posted by bradeasley
Yes that is my understanding.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Wilson
At least some of the A-Century mandolins had flat backs, and also some of the early A-00's.
In the early days of Gibson they numbered whichever instrument, A or F with an ascending number order where 1 was the plainest and 4 was the most ornate. When they decided to make the 5 series which would be the top of the line, they boxed themselves in. They couldn't make a 6 and say now this is better than the 5 after saying the 5 was the best, so that's why F-7's, 10's and 12's are less well appointed than the 5.
After watching Steve Earle's Guitar Town on Youtube I learned Martin got into a similar situation over the sizing of their guitars. I had never paid much attention to any Martin other than Dreadnaughts and had never realized their numerical system. But it turns out that a Model 1 was the biggest guitar they made and the higher the number the smaller the guitar. They must have thought they would never make larger guitars but when the size began to go up they had nowhere to go but down. Thus you got the 0,00, and 000 until they saw how ridiculous that was and began with the letter prefixes like the D.
To me the big difference in Gibson is the neck joint and elevated fretboard. The A and F models - 4 and below all have 12 fret neck joints and fretboards that rest on the top. I don't have a problem with that at all!
In the last 20 or so years, folks started building hybrid a-models with oval holes with the 15-fret neck joint. These are odd ducks to me and I don't like them. Others do.
If you want the oval hole sound, get the 12-fret neck joint. If you want the bluegrass sound, get a 15-fret neck joint.
Others differ.
f-d
Gibson listing above omits "LG," which was assigned to some smaller acoustic guitar models. I once heard it was for "ladies' guitar," but that might be just a rationalization by those crazed rationalists who insist that model designation initials must stand for something.
I own a Gibson LG-3/4, which looks like a shrunken J-200 with the rounded bouts. From the late '40's/early '50's, I believe.
Non Gibson Builders mix it up with necks and bridge locations of 5's, but an Oval sound hole of a 4//
Gibson made (& Jethro Burns owned) an oval hole 2 point with an F5 neck ..
12th fret out, on neck , not over the body ..
:whistling:
Then in the 60's they made the A5 and A12 mandolins that weren't A shaped at all but were F shaped with a lump scroll. Nobody can say they were better than anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Hilburn
Well, yeah. Like U for Harp Guitar. The others must mean something, right? The banjo naming system was a gift. The rest are up for grabs. The only thing Gibson ever called Florentine was a banjo with images of Venice on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by allenhopkins
Mike, right about the banjo, but wrong that it was "the only thing" called "Florentine." For no apparent reason Gibson called its EM-200 electric solid-body mandolin, introduced in 1954, "Florentine." Two-point body, F-model headstock; here's an explanatory OldFrets article about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeEdgerton
The author said Florentine, do you have any Gibson advertising material that calls it that? That would seal it, without it just people using a name.
I sit corrected, I just found reference to that name in a Gibson price list. That really puts the F=Florentine argument to rest. A Florentine mandolin apparently is a two-pointer solid electric. Who knew?
And the Florentine Controversy marches on!
1928 Gibson Florentine tenor guitar, with all the Venetian fretboard inlays, rhinestones all over the headstock, etc., etc.
Gibson Florentine Les Paul, in Caribbean Blue; appears from the description that G considers the sharp-pointed body cutaway a "Florentine" feature.
Regarding "Florentine":
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."
-- Lewis Carroll, Alice In Wonderland
The tenor is just a case of banjo envy but the Les Paul? Now the cutaway defines a Florentine? My head is spinning. It's still not an F style though.
Mandolin numbers indicate model or quality within a brand. Higher numbers often mean better features. Research specific brand's system for details.
Yeah, that doesn't always hold true either. Look at the specs for a Gibson F-5 mandolin vs the much less expensive Gibson F-9 mandolin.Quote:
Originally Posted by michaelsondavid81
The A, A-1, A2, A3, and A4 pretty much follows that. Some of the rest has become muddied over the years.
When I first started playing mandolin and heard about all this stuff I felt like "shame on Gibson for letting it get muddled."
I have since devised and implemented many a formal nomenclature, related to work and other things, and I have personally muddled everyone one. We device a nomenclature based on the full range of possible instances we can imagine. And I never imagine enough.
I have heard “LG” was short for “Little Guitar.”
Doesn't a 5 also mean that the neck joins the body at the twelfth fret rather than the tenth? I had an A5 once, and it confused the hell out of me, like a four-knob electric guitar or a multi-effects pedal.