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Thread: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

  1. #1

    Default Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

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  2. #2
    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    Well it might be original or it might be a mandolin that was altered to have a banjo resonator...not sure on this.

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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    Quote Originally Posted by DavidKOS View Post
    ............ it might be a mandolin that was altered to have a banjo resonator...not sure on this.
    Well, I am - although which one the neck came from, I can’t be sure!

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    Registered User Tavy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    That's just plain scary!

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    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    How about a picture of the back? I mean to a modified bowlback with a mandolin-banjo head (maybe from a UK maker) stuck on it.
    Jim

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    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    What you have is a bowlback mandolin that was made someplace other than the US, probably in Europe that someone has cut a big hole in the sound board and added the top plate of what is almost certainly a UK made banjo mandolin or banjo uke to. The value is pretty close to zero.
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
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  10. #7

    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Garber View Post
    How about a picture of the back? I mean to a modified bowlback with a mandolin-banjo head (maybe from a UK maker) stuck on it.
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    You can't see it easily, but the neck has a stamp on the back "Artist's Model" which is what made me think it was a custom built instrument. The front of the head has "John Grey & Sons Ltd. London Dulcetta"

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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    This is a rare Frankendolin, assembled from the corpses of a cheap Italian mandolin and a cheap English banjo mandolin (probably a John Grey). Likely to be unique because that kind of corporeal collision is statistically unlikely and because the end result 'ain't no kind of nothin' as I believe they say over the Pond. Ditto the value.

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  13. #9
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    Here’s something that is similar to the John Grey mandolin banjo part: https://www.ebay.com/itm/185310696524

    I don’t know why you insist on posting the same image twice. Or why you didn’t mention or post a photo of the John Grey medallion before. Anyway I agree with the franken-mandolin assessment above.
    Last edited by Jim Garber; May-06-2023 at 7:49am.
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    Gummy Bears and Scotch BrianWilliam's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    Telepod science just isn’t there yet ….

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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    With your new photograph of the back of the headstock, it appears that the neck came from the banjo.

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    Registered User Simon DS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    Designed by AI?

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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    wow, a perfect mandolin for steam punk convention gigs. too bad body needs work (big crack in sound board) and tuning machines are shot (too rusty). until that is fixed, impossible to know how it sounds and plays.

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    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    Let's be honest, it's custom built. That doesn't mean it started out custom. Someone mashed some parts together from at least two instruments to create a hot rod. Nobody sat down and designed it from day one and said "I'm going to build a bowlback mandolin and put a banjo head on it". Somebody most likely said "I've got this broken mandolin and this broken banjo. I wonder if I can make something playable out of them?" It's kind of like putting a Chevrolet V8 into a 32 Ford coupe except the Ford would have value.
    Last edited by MikeEdgerton; May-06-2023 at 12:49pm.
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    Was it a bowlback? Sure looks like a bowlback case. But the body looks like a flattop mandolin to me. Kinda scrunched in to the case. It sorta fits, I guess.
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    Registered User Simon DS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    .....
    Last edited by Simon DS; May-06-2023 at 4:29pm.

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    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    Flatback or bowlback, the process was the same. It didn't come out of any factory built that way.
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
    --M. Stillion

    "Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
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    Full Grown and Cussin' brunello97's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    Quote Originally Posted by MikeEdgerton View Post
    Let's be honest, it's custom built. That doesn't mean it started out custom. Someone mashed some parts together from at least two instruments to create a hot rod. Nobody sat down and designed it from day one and said "I'm going to build a bowlback mandolin and put a banjo head on it". Somebody most likely said "I've got this broken mandolin and this broken banjo. I wonder if I can make something playable out of them?" It's kind of like putting a Chevrolet V8 into a 32 Ford coupe except the Ford would have value.
    Nice way to put it. At least to me coming from a family of gear heads. And being the renagade.

    Sure it's nutty but mucho props to whoever decided to give it a try.

    It even looks fairly good.

    If I had the stuff laying around the house, I could see giving it a whirl myself.

    What's to lose but a couple hours of time? Certainly would be fun time.

    Full disclosure, I do have a banjolin or mandojo or whatever, but playing it drives me crazy.
    I don't share the fascination.
    An icepick in my ear.
    I need to let it go.

    But I do have a five string that I enjoy plucking on now and then, so go figure.
    The thumb and the finger picking is such a wonderful thing.

    Mick
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    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    Check this link:

    https://mandolinluthier.com/Gmiscellaneous.html

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    It looks much the same...is it a particular make or is it another cobbled-together item?

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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    Excellent! Very similar. I'll contact the site and ask for details.

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    Wow. I have a soft spot in my heart for this. Now the crack on the bass side is concerning, but the overall somewhat wackadoodle concept is wonderful. I don't have a notion that it will sound great, but I think it has a chance of sounding good, and every chance of not sounding bad.

    And in the right context, an all wackadoodle band, playing the right music, why not. If the neck and frets are right, and the player can play, well there is nothing cuter than a good player dignifying this otherwise lost and lonely instrument.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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    Full Grown and Cussin' brunello97's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    Quote Originally Posted by DavidKOS View Post
    Check this link:

    https://mandolinluthier.com/Gmiscellaneous.html

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    It looks much the same...is it a particular make or is it another cobbled-together item?

    If you're going to have one, might as well have two.

    That's a lot of precise sizing / machining for a one-off instrument.

    I was at first thinking it might have been a BanFrankenjolin but perhaps there were more than a few of these rigs made?

    Maybe sold as a kit to soup up your bowlback?

    Easy answer is that that these were scavenged from a small banjolin, perhaps of English make?

    At first glance, it doesn't appear to be an obvious way the rig is connected to the top.

    Or are those rivets actually hex head nuts of some kind?

    The photos are a bit fuzzy to zoom in on.

    Also....does the top on the image David posted look extra thick or is that shadowed edge just a illusion?

    So curious!

    I did have an 8 string 'banjo uke-o-lin' for a while with a small diameter head and no resonator.

    It had a very mellow tone but not a lot of volume.

    I find my large head banjolin to be unbearable to listen to, as much as I want to enjoy playing it, I can't.

    The combination of smaller stretched head and bowl might make for an interesting sonic alternative.

    It's not hard at all to fathom why someone would want to give it a try.

    Or two.

    Mick
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  32. #23
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    Quote Originally Posted by John Moar View Post
    Excellent! Very similar. I'll contact the site and ask for details.
    I would be curious what David Hynds says. Most likely he found it online although there is a small possibility that he had it in his shop.
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  33. #24
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    I would guess the top might have to be thicker to support the weight of the metal braced banjo head. Fascinating that two of these existed. Love those oddballs.
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    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bizarre instrument. ID, please?

    Even more fascinating that both have the same missing strings.
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
    --M. Stillion

    "Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
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