Why Red, and What’s This

[Richard500]

Mousing around online auctions, I see all these Russian balalaikas and mandolins which seem to have red scratchplate/pickguards, as if no other color is allowed. I don’t think it’s national identity, but maybe someone knows what it’s about.

And today, here’s the backside of a Russian mandolin on auction. Maybe my image recognition is officially inferior to AI, or something actually is incomprehensible. From the photo, whatever this is appears silkscreened, nicely centered, but with a couple fuzzy areas. Ideas?

[vic-victor]

Those Russian mandolins were made by Lunacharski factory in St. Petersburg (Leningrad back then). Not only red, there was also black paint available for improvised painted pickguards As for the back image, that's an easy one. It is a stylized image of St. Petersburg rostral column, one of the symbols of St. Petersburg. Lack of taste in making of these instruments is apparent all over the place with these instruments. Some of the mandolins even had a plastic body (Inspired by Ovation in a way, I guess). Having said that, the instruments often had decent solid tops and some could have been revorked into fairly decently sounded (but still ugly looking) mandolins by the Russian luthiers. Nearly all of them were unplayable straight from the factory.