Help identifying a mandolin

[Ppadbos]

Hi.
I was recently gifted this mandolin. It was found at a church sale in PA.
The only identification marking of any sort was a faded green stamping of "6561h410" inside the body.
A Style -One piece top and back wood.
I successfully tuned the strings without damaging the body (that I know of) so it seems to be in good condition except a break in the edge of the base by the tailpiece.
Can anyone help identify anything about it? Or point me in the right direction?


Thanks!

[allenhopkins]

I'd say Harmony, large Chicago manufacturer of inexpensive (generally) instruments.

The segmented F-holes with comma-shaped holes at the end are found on Harmony mandolins, as are model numbers with the central "H" as described in this post from Mike Egerton:

There has been a conventional wisdom for the last several years as to how Harmony Date Coded their instruments and how they were read. The general thought (that I have posted here in the past) is that they were stamped with a letter that stood for the season the instrument was built (Summer, Winter, Fall) followed by the two digit year. From some recent information that was gleaned from a former Harmony employee that has changed somewhat. I went back through my records of instruments that passed through my hands certain I'd had a W in the past. I had not. Everything I've owned (a few dozen) was marked S or F. Harmony apparently shut down for two weeks every July and there would be a rush to complete instruments by the end of June. Those pre shutdown instruments were marked F-YEAR. Those instruments built after the shutdown were marked S-YEAR (First Half, Second Half). I see that is the most likely explanation for the date code.

There has also been a conventional wisdom that Harmony did not put serial numbers on their mandolins. The answer there is they kind of did. A Harmony Model number is generally stamped as XXXHXX. It appears that the number after the H is the model number and the number prior is the serial of that batch, made in that time period. In other words, you can't date a Harmony instrument from the serial number alone. You need the date code. It should also be noted that some of the time that stamped number just isn't there.

Seems to fit the characteristics of your instrument. If you can find the date code as well you might be able to figure out when it was built.

[Jim Garber]

I believe that yours is a Harmony Monterey mandolin model 410. That is a Harmony serial number. The H in the middle stands for Harmony and the numbers after that are the model number. There should be a second stamp near this number with an F or and S followed by two digits which is the date of manufacture. Yours looks like it was stripped and refinished BTW.

More info and some pics of what it originally looked like on this thread.

[pfox14]

I agree. It's a Harmony. The f-holes are a dead give-away.