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Thread: Help finding age of Fratelli Indelicato Mandolin

  1. #1

    Default Help finding age of Fratelli Indelicato Mandolin

    I have second Mandolin that I am in need of help identifying. It has a label inside but I can't really find anything when I try google searching, and it is more difficult because there is not a model number. This one does not play as clean as the "Columbia" one in my other post but it does have the label inside.

    Warm Regards
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  2. #2
    Martin Stillion mrmando's Avatar
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    Default Re: Help finding age of Fratelli Indelicato Mandolin

    The Indelicate Brothers?

    Catania is a town in Sicily where tons of mandolins are made. Like many of them, this was made for export, which is why part of the label is in English.

    Experts, when did exports from Catania become a thing? After the war, I presume?
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  3. #3

    Default Re: Help finding age of Fratelli Indelicato Mandolin

    I reckon it is as recent as the 1960s.

  4. #4
    Full Grown and Cussin' brunello97's Avatar
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    Default Re: Help finding age of Fratelli Indelicato Mandolin

    Mandolins were coming out of Catania as far back as the ‘00s apparently.

    G Puglisi Reale was certainly working (and exporting) mandolins and guitars in the ‘10s and earlier. We’ve seen text in German on some of their labels.

    We’ve had discussions here about whether the mandolins of many Neapolitan labeled vendors were actually ‘made for the trade’ in Catania and sold elsewhere.

    DeMureda, Lanfranco, Ferrari, etc. may very well have had been from Catania makers as complete instruments or ‘finished’ in Napoli…like ur-Northfields.

    The design and detailing is often Sicilian in character.

    Not unlike the oceans of Sicilian wine shipped north and labeled as ‘Tuscan’ etc.

    Catania was heavily bombed during WW2 with much destruction.

    Only a few producers survived. It is during the post war boom in instruments that we see some the more familiar Catanese makers / conglomerates really get into the export business under their own labels.

    But it has been going on for a long, long time.

    Based on the ‘modern’ type font on the OPs bowl, I’d guess anywhere from late 30s to early 50s. The detailing, tuners, finish could narrow that late 40s to early / mid 50s if I were to try harder.

    Mick
    Last edited by brunello97; Feb-22-2023 at 9:30am.
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  6. #5
    Full Grown and Cussin' brunello97's Avatar
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    Default Re: Help finding age of Fratelli Indelicato Mandolin

    BTW the ‘In-‘ prefix on Italian names does not have the negatative or inverse meaning as in other words, but suggests “from the family of…”.

    Mick
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  7. #6

    Default Re: Help finding age of Fratelli Indelicato Mandolin

    Sometimes the street address can date the era, if there’s a history of the Indelicatos. What I’d like to know is what the inlay is supposed to represent - floral, marine life?

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    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Help finding age of Fratelli Indelicato Mandolin

    A bit of info about the father of the Fratelli: https://www.fetishguitars.com/sicily...ato-contarino/
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  10. #8
    Full Grown and Cussin' brunello97's Avatar
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    Default Re: Help finding age of Fratelli Indelicato Mandolin

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Garber View Post
    A bit of info about the father of the Fratelli: https://www.fetishguitars.com/sicily...ato-contarino/
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    Full Grown and Cussin' brunello97's Avatar
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    Default Re: Help finding age of Fratelli Indelicato Mandolin

    Jim's guitar fetish link also leads to Carmelo Catania another Catanese maker who survived the war and whose mandolin work from at least the late '40s / early '50s we see for export.

    Numerous CC bowlbacks have come up for discussion here.

    Carmelo's work shares some of the later Catanese design aesthetics as i fratelli.

    His guitar designs have that Sicilian brio that I enjoy so much.

    Mick
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  12. #10

    Default Re: Help finding age of Fratelli Indelicato Mandolin

    This is a Spanish guitar from the firm with the same label and shows the dot markers to one side of the board which seemed to be a design initiative from the 50s although I think the guitar is probably from the 60s. I don't know if the mandolin has replacement tuners but they look a lot like the Japanese type Kay began to use in the early 60s on many of their instruments.

    https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/a...e-a79700cf1a7c

  13. #11
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Help finding age of Fratelli Indelicato Mandolin

    Beautiful pickguard.
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