Manuel Velasco: spanish mandolin

[Sellars]

Hi all!

In my quest for a new instrument for greek music (see my topic in CBOM) I encountered a little mandolin by the spanish builder/factory Manuel Velasco.

The inside label says:

Manuel Velasco Fabrica de guitarras Y bandurias, mandolinas. Madrid

I was picking it up to see how it sounded, and it abolutely blew my socks off!!

It is very loud, has very rich basses and has a superb high range.

It was a second hand instrument that the store bought from a spanish group.

When I was playing it in the store, it was strung with phosphor-bronze strings. The owner gave me silk&steel lenzner strings, and now the sound is even better.

The only thing I know from the materials that were used is that it has an ebony fingerboard and bridge, that is has a bone nut and saddle, and that it has a solid top.

Does anyone have information about the builder or the age of the instrument?

I will post pictures as soon as I have them.


http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

[lucho]

I would love to see those pictures.... Acording to E. Zavaleta... "Manuel Velasco(Madrid, active c. 1890) was a guitar maker who was active in Madrid at the end of the nineteenth century. His workshop was at calle Ancha, no. 118". Those little mandos like yours are used along with bandurria, laúd, and guitarra by traditional spanish and portuguese folk bands called tunas (if their main stay is singing and partying), estudiantinas (if their main stay is being a plectrum orchestra) or rondallas (a mix of both) especially popular in Philippines.

[Sellars]

Hi Lucho!

Thanks for your reply. The store I bought it from bought the mandolin from a spanish tunas group.

Who or what is E. Zavaleta?

[lucho]

Eva Zabaleta and Jim Greenberg sell quality spanish guitars in Tucson and keep an online encyclopedia on spanish makers.... BTW, you promised a snapshot of the instrument you asked...
saludos,

[Eugene]

For future reference, Zavaleta's House of Guitars (http://www.zavaletas-guitarras.com/) (or Zavaleta's La Casa de Guitarras) and their handy list of classic Spanish luthiers (http://www.azstarnet.com/public/commerce/zavaletas/greene/bioshist.htm) listed by region. Zavaleta's really is amongst the more reputable classical guitar shops.

[Sellars]

Thanks for the info! I still have to make some goor pictures, especially of the label inside the mandolin. But here is a prelimenary one (if i can get it to work)

[Eugene]

Very nice. #Its profile looks comparable to mandolins I've seen from the Contreras shop (also in Madrid) and other Spanish instruments. #It's hard to tell from the images, but it looks to be of a later date than I would think Velasco himself would have been active. #The top looks like it may be cedar, which didn't come into wide use on guitars until the 1960s. #The tuning machines look to have plastic buttons, which I would not expect of a ca. 1890 piece; tuners are, of course, easily replaced, and these may not be original. #I have no idea how late Velasco's shop continued operations.