This spectacular mandolin just celebrated it’s 100th birthday this year! For her birthday she enjoyed a centennial, bare-wood concourse restoration. Everything from repaired binding, new Stew Mac finish and clear coat to fret work, neck work, structural repair and more… you name it, it’s been addressed and finessed back to a healthy glow. Comes with a brand new hard shell case and fresh D’Addario strings, picks etc.
As you can see, this 100 year old Gibson A (like thousands of others), needed quite a bit of TLC when she arrived and she received it in spades from JML Studios in NYC. Everything from an impossibly weathered original paper label to peeling up binding!
The luthiers at JML Studios are constantly restoring world class mandolins every day and this one is probably the coolest (dare I say best sounding) mando ever to grace our benches.
This highly projective 1921 Gibson A model is now a very strong 8-string mandolin, ready to go another 100 years. It was sanded down to the bare wood and completely restored from the ground up using only the very best luthier stains and clear coat products money can buy. The binding has been fixed as well, as it was coming up where the neck meets the body, look at the last picture for details. No expense was spared and we even had a new handmade Gibson engraved saddle made (1:1 spec) just for the restoration (old tailpiece is included, as seen in last picture). The old oxidized saddle, while original, was also blank AMD I’ve always preferred the Gibson stamped ashtray covered ones so I had one made to spec and appropriately distressed by some pretty incredible craftsman. The original is also included in the listing and can be put back on but the new one looks way better imho. Even the original paper-label serial badge on the inside, which was all but completely disintegrated away, was recreated by veteran mandolin luthier Scott Fox of SOuth Carolina who specialized in those types of concourse restoration details. Scott actually serviced this one of 8 mandolins at the same time in 97, which he sold to the guy I bought this one from. His name is written in sharpie down in the body. Too far to get a photo but I contacted him. He sounds like he’s in his late 90’s and couldn’t remember which one I was talking about. When I got this mandolin however, his 97 restoration, just like an old 1997 hot rod, desperately needed a facelift and a ground up job. It’s now ready for another 40-50 years of like new playability and shine.
Every single thing you see was attended to. These sell as high as 10k when done right (see pricing screenshot in pics) and this one is being done RIGHT but will go for much less to move quickly. This is one of the loudest, warmest and boldest sounding mando’s on the market today. Everyone that hears it agrees it’s the loudest and boomiest mando they’ve ever heard. The sound itself is just massive.
Comes with both original aluminum saddle for even louder, brighter performances as well as a wooden one for recording and session work. Own a piece of 100 year old history and a holy grail instrument with this once in a lifetime purchase. Original pickguard and ancient hardware included, although we left it off for obvious aesthetic reasons. Also, it’s a bit warped from being older than any living humans.
We have a half dozen other 100 year old unique mando’s about to pop up in our shop so stay tuned.
Watch this listing and the other mandolins undergoing total overhaul to stay informed of completion!
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