Very old Gibson A-styled mandolin

[WillMartin]

The tuners have the worm gear on the bottom. When I got it, someone had reversed them to be on top so it “looks right”, but they twisted backwards to tune up and down. The tuners have elaborately inlaid buttons and ivoroid grain.

While the neck and body are in fine condition, somebody botched a repair, replacing the tuning head and drilled the holes for the tuners badly, so it was extremely difficult to tune. I’ve improved this, but it’s still not great. It’s not a collector’s item, but I’m interested in the instrument it would have been with the original tuning head. The sound is still coming from an instrument probably around a century old.

It’s an A style body (teardrop, without the curly shoulder), with a bound fingerboard and top. The back is also bound, though it’s not obvious because the binding is nearly the same color as the back.

The rosette around the oval sound hole has two rings of purfling (each ring composed of dark, light, diagonal parallelograms of dark and light, light, dark). If the parallelograms were next to each other, it would form herringbone.

Plain blonde top, darkened with age to deep amber. Mahogany sides and back with reddish finish. The back is lightly figured.

Round pearl markers at 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, & 15th frets.

Oval sound hole with label inside with “No._______” filled in by hand with “5790”. The label has a small, photographic image of Mr. Gibson with a mustache and the words “Trade Mark” on either side, over a lyre guitar image. Text around the top says “Gibson Mandolin=Guitar Mfg. Co.”

The afore-mentioned number is to the left of the Lyre. To the right is “Patented February first, 1898”. Across the bottom of the label, it says Kalamazoo, Mi, U.S.A.”

The neck block is stamped “Order No 367” stamped on it in ink.

None of the advice I’ve found here helps with a year of manufacture. I’m told it’s pre-1930s because of the tuners. I’ve replaced the tuners with Stew-Mac replicas to preserve the originals, so I don’t wear off the inlay or overly stress the mechanisms in the misguided holes in the tuning head.

I think they were drilled by hand, not perfectly parallel, not in a perfect straight line, and not all that well aligned with the edge of the tuning head.

If I knew who did the repair, I’d hurt them. Maybe they are dead. I’d like to think so.

It was a gift from my mother's boyfriend not long before he died. It was his second mandolin. His son appropriately got the better one.

[rcc56]

That is a very early Gibson indeed. The serial number and factory order number both correspond to 1906 using Spann's Guide to Gibson as a reference.

A picture of the instrument would be nice, including the botched repair.

[Ray(T)]

Going by the dates you describe, it sounds to me that someone between 1906 and around 1925 replaced the original tuners with a set of “Handel” tuners but fitted them the wrong way round. As rc56 says photos would help and also one of the tuners you appear to have taken off.

If you’ve replaced the tuners with Stew Mac tuners, hopefully those are the Golden Age “Restoration” tuners which are the only readily available tuners which will fit. (The hole spacing and worm position of Gibson’s tuners changed around 1924 and have generally remained the same ever since.) Please hold on to the inlaid tuners. If they are “Handels” they might be worth nearly as much as the mandolin itself!

Welcome to the forum.