Snakehead H-2 mandola?

[MikeEdgerton]

I can try in a little while. I know the buttons aren't exact but they are close. If I made them smaller the difference in the headstock width would be even greater. That's not a normal snake headstock. By the way, Darryl already pointed that out in a private conversation. I can't see why Gibson wouldn't have tooled up to make a snakehead mandola. I can however understand why they may not have made many of them.

[Darryl Wolfe]

Looks fully real to me. Peg head is wider at lower shoulders just like they widened the F Mandola. Bridge would not be in that location with a Mandola fingerboard. 12th fret would not be in that location with mandolin neck

[Darryl Wolfe]

Same strap is in both pictures. Drop the conspiracy theories

[Glassweb]

Same strap is in both pictures. Drop the conspiracy theories

leave it to the pros... Darryl is spot on... perhaps this is the holy grail of Gibson A-model mandolas... an H2 snakehead... would be an amazing find!

[Darryl Wolfe]

I can try in a little while. I know the buttons aren't exact but they are close. If I made them smaller the difference in the headstock width would be even greater. That's not a normal snake headstock. By the way, Darryl already pointed that out in a private conversation. I can't see why Gibson wouldn't have tooled up to make a snakehead mandola. I can however understand why they may not have made many of them.

Gut check says this is special ordered, or the only one made as an example. They never catalogued snake Mandola

Additionally, I believe/speculate that they had plenty of finished mando las in stock

There are unbelievably few truss rodded mandolas of any kind. Those known tend to be pre snake head or post Loar

I have a narrow neck '26 H1 with the odd The Gibson inlay found only in a narrow swath of time when they appear to have been forced to make a few mandolas and the last batch of snake A4s

I suspect they had plenty of roughed out paddle head Mandola necks and never gave any thought to aligning snake mandolas and snake mandolins....hence the return to paddle head A's.....they had the necks

Speculation

[MikeEdgerton]

If it only had f holes

[mrmando]

There was a short run of F-hole, A-style mandolas in the mid-'30s (not snakehead, though) ... one was on eBay a few days ago for $1,200, not a bad price.

But yes, I suppose if this had F-holes it would be the Griffith Loar's big sister.

[Paul Statman]

Using the totally unscientific approach of trying to get a known snakehead headstock from an A2Z to be the same size as this image. The buttons and the truss rod cover should be close.

Now it looks like a mandola: We can see a wider peghead and definitely wider nut than a snakehead mandolin. What a find!
Thanks, Mike!

[blidgood]

Goodness, folks, hold your horses. I was working all day in the office pictured behind both of the photos!

The serial is not on the mando archive list, I checked. It _is_ a mandola, the "H2" is clearly on the label, and...well, it just IS. I have been using it with my mandolin orchestra ensemble here at ETSU for the past two weeks and it is regaining the lovely baritone voice it lost during a decade-long stint in a closet.

As promised, better photos and video are forthcoming. (...and measurements - - are you going to sew it a dress?)

[MikeEdgerton]

This is generally how we react to the discovery of an instrument that is rewriting history.

Looking forward to seeing more pictures.

[Ken Waltham]

Am I the only one that knew that was two photos to begin with? I'm waiting for more photos. I suspect it's real but won't know until we see some pictures of the back as well and get the serial and FON.

Isn't this just a plainly a joke? Come on guys...
It's pretty funny.

[mandotool]

The matching original gibson cord/straps ...a very nice touch..
almost a poetic sort of hoax..yes?

[j. condino]

Snakehead or snakeoil from a new account with only 3 postingzzzzzz?????

OK, so I'll play along and call your bluff:

Is this Lee anonymously posting?

Since it is just over at ETSU, can I come down the hill from Asheville with my hacklinger guage and magnifying glasses to authenticate it? I can bring along other ETSU mandolin faculty if needed or the department head, since I do regular work there and am a registered vendor with the school. If it is real, this would make a great addition to the commercial blueprint I have in the works with another entity featuring a Loar era snakehead mandolin and a matching mandola. In the last 8 years I have worked with the Metropolitain Museum of Art, The Smithsonian, The Heinze Museum, and the National Music Museum with their instrument collections, so I'll bring my fuzzy white gloves and be nice with it, and the rest of the community here will get a follow up on it.

j.
www.condino.com

[Walt]

I saw a centaur today, everyone. No, I didn't take a picture of its entire body, but here is one picture of a horse's hind quarters and another picture of a guy's head.

[mrmando]

Goodness, people join the forum with questions about instruments all the time. Let's give the OP a chance and the benefit of the doubt here.

[MikeEdgerton]

First off, to the original poster let me apologize for the collective behavior here, it's a little embarrassing. Yes, we know who the poster is, Darryl has already said he thinks it might be real and chances are it is. Let's all take a step back and wait for the rest of the pictures if the OP even feels like he wants to post them here after this display. He does work for who he says he works for, there's nothing for him to gain here. This is possibly a very unique instrument. I'm not too sure how I would react after that sort of a welcome.

[j. condino]

After some further investigation, I can't yet comment on the instrument but I can vouch for the person. He's solid, honest, a great musician, and we have a prior established relationship, so a little more patience and I'll report back on the mandola.

A little poking around the café insides also showed that one of my favorite mandolin players has been taking a few minutes off the Dell and Dawg tour to follow this thread!

Fun, exciting new stuff...and I thought it was going to be another one of those boring regular weekends giging with my Django trio surrounded by all the hot hipster ladies shakin' and grindin' at the pub....

j.

[mandotool]

you have to admit...that franken photo sure looks like someone with a sense of humor is behind it..
I would love nothing more than to be completely wrong and to add this to my long and growing list of
things I have been wrong about..
The suspense is killin me..
Next thing you know...Loar's paddle head 10 string mandola will pop up..
Anybody ??

[Eric Foulke]

Wow, harsh crowd.
Frankly, given Gibson's history of mixing and matching from the "parts bin" in the 20's and 30's, I would have been surprised if there weren't a snakehead mandola. All we need now is a snakehead K-2.
I await more pictures.

[MikeEdgerton]

If you click on the picture it is two pictures that by the virtue of the forum software some people took to be one picture. The poster had no say in how that image posted he just attempted to post two pictures and apologized for the resolution. Had he changed the order that he posted in they would have been reversed with the body on the top and the headstock on the bottom.

[Timbofood]

Aw, c'mon Mike, surely that was one picture, I couldn't hardly see the giant fold in the middle!
But seriously, did anyone really think that was one shot? Time for new glasses or screens gang. The occurrence of these little gems floating to the surface still happens, I did not doubt the reality of the photograph, it didn't appear to be the least bit bogus to me and, I'm not that bright, axe anywun!

[allenhopkins]

Am I the only one that knew that was two photos to begin with?....

Well, I for one didn't pick up on that. Mea culpa. Hence, my post that the instrument looked "mandolin-sized."

Hope it's authentic.

[Vernon Hughes]

I see an obvious difference in the peghead width and also the truss rod cover is certainly higher up the peghead on the mandola than on the mandolin. My 2 cents...

[Scott Tichenor]

The institution where I work received an instrument donation, some older axes of various kinds and qualities. Along with this beauty, which looks to be a 1924-ish snakehead, with "H2" printed on the label.
What do _we_make of this? I'd love to hear from folks!


Apologies for the quick and dirty images, will work on figuring out how to get better quality images posted here.

Here we go. How's this now? Pictures side by side.

Those of you that don't have anything courteous to add are welcome to leave the conversation to espouse your wisdom elsewhere. Some of the complainers in this thread are the same people that pull the trigger to moderators anytime they don't like something. I've had enough of it. Belly ache or comment on my post to find out just how short my fuse is over how this individual has been welcomed to our community.

[danb]

As Darryl pointed out, the proportions of the snakehead, nut width, etc are definitely credible. I'm curious to see a back view as well as the neck joint, but there's no reason to immediately shout hoax.

It's very cool, and potentially one of the most interesting mandolas we've seen yet!

The snakehead itself reminds me of proportions on style L guitars.. I had an Ljr at one point with one that was "Fatter" than you'd see on a mandolin too. It makes perfect sense because the bottom width is dictated by the width of the nut/number of strings/string spacing.