The History of Mechancial Tuners?

[Graham McDonald]

As some of you might know, I am working on a book on the history of mandolin family instruments, and one of the areas I can find little information about is the story of mechanical tuners. As far as I can tell, they started being used widely on guitars and mandolins after around 1820, but there seems to be little information on who made them and where. There were the Preston watch key tuners in the mid 18th century and William Gibson guittars made in Dublin from the 1760s which used mechanical tuners, which I suppose were hand made rather than manufactured in any great numbers.

I am planning to contact some people who know about early 19th century guitars to see what I can glean from them, but any other leads would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

graham

[Jim Garber]

Graham: I just sent off an email to a friend who is deep into early 19th century guitars. I will let you know what I hear.

[Bruce Clausen]

My Panormo guitar built in London in the 1820s had very fine heads with the name Baker stamped on the plaques.

[Graham McDonald]

Thanks Bruce,

I have seen the name Bake ron Art Robb's site from the UK, so I assume an English manufacturer. But a clue, nevertheless!

cheers

[Bruce Clausen]

I've always imagined that the influence of the Preston "English guitars" with their watch-key tuners on the Portuguese instruments arose in connection with the rise of the Port wine trade in the eighteenth century. I'll be interested to hear what you can find about that development, Graham.

[Graham McDonald]

The citterns in various forms over several hundred years are a fascinating part of the whole story. I hope I can string together a story from 16th century Italy to Ireland in the 1960s. The Preston straight line tuners and their adoption in Portugal is one part of that. The intriguing thing at the moment is when the early worm and cog tuners started to be used on mandolins. They appeared on guitars (and perhaps mandolins) around 1820, but there is very little info on mandolins at all after 1800 or so until their re-emergence around 1870. The better known of the Neapolitan makers like the Vinaccias seem to have been mostly building guitars the early 19th century, and I can't seem to have found any Neapolitan mandolins between 1800/1810 and 1870 in museum collections. I have seen a facsimile of the French music catalog from Mirecourt from around 1850 which shows a bowlback mandolin with wooden tuning pegs, but nothing else.

cheers

graham

[Richard Walz]

I've seen friction tuners for mid/late 19th century mandolins (banjos). That is, a type of mechanical friction tuner, not the simple wood peg. Anyone familiar with the simple wood peg in the typical Neapolitan mandolin headstock can appreciate how much this invention reduced cussing and swearing among mandolinists with sensitive or (sorry) picky ears.

[Graham McDonald]

The only mandolin that I have seen with friction tuners is a very silly 16 string Mullingar that musicial instrument dealer Tony Bingham has in his shop in London. And they are not banjo type friction pegs, but piano/hammered dulcimer friction pins. Fun tuning that one! After re-reading Paul Sparks' Classical Mandolin I did a search on Pasquale Vinaccia and found a pic of an 1840 Vinaccia mandolin that Christies sold a couple of years back. Sparks suggests Pasquale developed the 'modern' mandolin, with tuners, raised fingerboard and more robust construction than earlier Neapolitan mandolins around 1835, so an 1840 instrument is pretty rare I suspect. I will try Christies to see if they can tell me who bought it.

One other suggestion I got from an early guitar expert is to ask people like Rodgers, who make reproduction tuners for romantic era guitars, so I will see if that leads anywhere.

cheers

graham

[Tavy]

Oh man, just looked up that Mullinger - I really don't rate the chances of all 16 strings being in tune at the same time!

[dave17120]

My understanding of things is that the mandolin/mandolino gradually fell out of favour during the latter half of the C18, when they were equipped with pegs. It is extremely difficult to find examples of the mandolin built early to mid C19. Therefore, I would imagine any that were made were pegged. Sparks puts the resurgence of the mandolin in the third quarter of the C19, co-inciding with the famous tour of the Spanish Students, and the developments of better metal strings.

I would imagine mass production of tuners would not have been possible before the resurgence in popularity, and then only after small enterprises had produced their own early versions.....

I attach below, some photos.....
0. a late C18 mandolino with pegs.
1. a pegged mandolin, the holes were tapered, even though it arrived with strip tuners, so I re-fitted pages.
2. a German mando with friction tuners fitted, evidently replacing old pegs.
3. French mando with enclosed tuners from J T Lamy, Paris... c1900
4. Bellini italian enclosed tuners c1900
5. Carlo Loveri enclosed, early 1900s
6. Alessandro Santini, italian enclosed with front plate, early 1900s

I guess once production 'took off' in the 1890s, then the mass production of tuners could begin for the mandolin. If we know little about most mandolin builders of the late 19th centruy, we know even less about who made their parts... tailpieces, scratchplates, and tuners.