Mandolin Identity (Help!)

[Kevin Briggs]

Hey all!

A friend sent me these pictures asking if I knew where this is from, who made it, and when…. Any ideas?

[MikeEdgerton]

The headstock has a certain Bruno look to it. Bruno was a distributor and didn't make anything. It was made in the US but the top was most likely made and decorated in someone's basement.

[Charles E.]

One has to wonder what the heck is going on with the top. It is not spruce. And the paint around the sound hole, edge and finger board is much more crude then the floral design.

[Jim Garber]

Lovely decalcomania work on the top. The luthier went on to finish his basement in faux vinyl wood-grain paneling circa 1970. At one point this may have been considered to be a mandolin.

[allenhopkins]

Yeah, looks like someone re-topped a fairly decent quality (judging by the number of rosewood ribs in the bowl) early-20th-century US-made bowl-back. The neck and headstock look original, as does the "kidney" tailpiece. The top's not spruce, as Charley points out, and the bridge is surely non-original as well. The binding and soundhole rosette are either plastic or paint, and a floral decal was applied to the top.

Speculating that the original top was damaged, but enough remained for someone to use as a template for the replacement. Top decals like that were often found on instruments from the 1920's and early '30's, so that might suggest the general date of the re-top.

All guesswork on my part, so worth the usual 2¢. A shot of the back of the headstock might allow the tuner mavens on the Cafe to do a better evaluation.

[Kevin Briggs]

Ask and you shall receive:

[MikeEdgerton]

Those decals were still be sold in the 80's and 90's. I think they are much newer than the bowl.

[Louise NM]

The top appears to be either oak or ash, perhaps with a coat of semi-solid deck stain to tone down the natural beauty of the wood, and the dismal brown-on-brown flowers look like a colorless remnant of the tole painting craze of the '70s. I'll vote for acrylic paint used for binding. The identity of the artisan is doubtlessly lost to history.

Don't trade the new Hamlett for it, OK?

[Sue Rieter]

The top appears to be either oak or ash, perhaps with a coat of semi-solid deck stain to tone down the natural beauty of the wood, and the dismal brown-on-brown flowers look like a colorless remnant of the tole painting craze of the '70s. I'll vote for acrylic paint used for binding. The identity of the artisan is doubtlessly lost to history.

Don't trade the new Hamlett for it, OK?

Ouch! Tell us what you really think, Louise