Cruising Craigslist the other day I came across a Harmony archtop that was converted to an octave mandolin. It seems that someone in the Denver area is converting these and selling them through the Denver Folklore Center for about $500. I bought it from a private party who had bought it from the Folklore Center. The price was too good to pass up, and I'm not saying how much I paid, because it is embarrassingly low.
The instrument is in really good shape for probably being 50ish years old. The neck has been shaved to 1.5 inches at the nut and the plugs in the headstock are barely noticeable. The bridge is a bit rough, but it looks like they just used the original bridge and reworked it for 8 strings. Refinished nicely in clear satin showing the natural spruce top and a nice amber burst on (what I'm assuming are) mahogany back and sides. It plays pretty well but has a longer scale length (25.4") than my Blueridge OM that I converted from a tenor. I'm thinking that I'll modify the bridge and nut to accommodate larger strings and set it up as a Mandocello. Looking at emando.com they have several sets of ball end mandocello strings.
I'll post some sound samples as soon as I get the new strings on.
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