Two Clifford Essex Mandolins Made in England 20s/30s

[NickR]

These are being sold by the same seller. I am posting them up because I believe they were made in England probably by Clifford Essex. The company did sell foreign made instruments at this time but I think they were from a very much smaller number made by the company itself. My main reason for stating this is the American hardware- although one has new tuners. European made instruments would have German hardware. I missed at auction a Clifford Essex guitar- possibly made by their master craftsman Marco Roccio and its tuners were the Grover "Top" sort from the 1930s. I would imagine that these mandolins might be before his time at Clifford Essex. As British made mandolins are scarce these may be of interest:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Clifford-...zvZt:rk:1:pf:0

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Clifford-...xfRq:rk:2:pf:0

[Jim Garber]

I like the one with the new tuners and (I think) added wooden scratchplate.



Here's the other one:



It is annoying that the seller could not provide one complete front and back photo of each. This last one has the standard Essex headstock I have seen on other of their instruments. The one i posted at the top is very different.

[NickR]

Jim, thank you for doing the honours by posting up the photos. It never ceases to amaze me that often you do not get a photo of the complete instrument on ebay! They certainly look like good instruments but I am afraid, I have never handled one. I shall have to ask my repair guy what he thinks of them. Marco Roccia was a friend of his father-in-law but as I wrote, I think these predate his time with the firm, but I may be wrong.

[Seter]

You can always tell when a nonplayer is posting instrument pictures, they'll lop off the headstock and things like that that a player would be very keen on seeing. At least this person covered all parts of the instrument, you just have to assemble them in your mind like a jigsaw puzzle.

[Seter]

Those are nice looking instruments though and the British-made factor is interesting, out of my current price range but I'll keep in mind for some day.