Mending a Martin.....

[Jeff Mando]

For me the stickers add to the mandolin. They are obviously original, not to the mandolin, but to the owner who brought it over as a US Airman during WWII. (It does beg the question, why didn't he bring it back home with him? And sadly that is war, of course. Hopefully, he sold it to take his buddies out on the town!) Very cool, IMHO. Great approach to the repair, also! Well done.

[NEH57]

I think I would have gone with Coyote ?

[MikeEdgerton]

Keep in mind that when that mandolin went overseas it was probably just "an old mandolin", a beater that the owner probably didn't care a whole lot about. It might have been broken years before anyone tried the alligator dentistry they tried to fix it. My dad flew in a bomber crew in WWII (different theater, Pacific out of Shemya in the Aleutian Islands). He told me about packing up the belongings of crewmen that were lost and shipping them home to the family as it was something they could hold on to. Maybe it wasn't always done that way, I certainly don't profess to be an expert.

[MikeEdgerton]

I think you'll find that might be a squadron patch. If you have a enough time you can go through this collection.

[MikeEdgerton]

Disney designed for the Yuma Army Air Field. During WWII it was a training base for US Army bomber pilots and air crews. That means my dad probably passed through there. I'm going to have to look through his papers to see if there's any mention of it.

http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/foru...rmy-air-field/

[BradKlein]

I think I would have gone with Coyote ?

I bet you're right. Coyote!

[Buck]

I checked with a Martin archivist and while the detail of shop notes varies, he was able to find a little information on this one. Serial number 11189 is an AK mandolin that was stamped on April 4, 1924.

[MikeEdgerton]

That was the model and year we pegged it at from the materials and the serial but I've never seen a listing of months and models by serial numbers. I'd love to know the source for that information. We have some of that on the Gibson side. Is that published somewhere as well?

[Buck]

Mike, this type of information is not published, and may never be in it's entirety. However, some of it is available from the Martin archives if you know who to ask. Sometimes there is additional information about what else was in the batch, if there were special instructions, where the instrument shipped, and even the type of top wood used during a narrow postwar window from 1957-1962. In this case the only readily available information is what I posted above.

There is a book in the works, but I don't know when it will be completed or how much of this type of information it will hold. In the meantime I try to help folks out when I see something as interesting as this mandolin, while trying not to wear out my welcome with too many questions.

[bbcee]

Back to the repair ... you get to sit at the big table with Frank Ford for that one! What a beautiful job.

[NEH57]

Buck, that's great info to add to the back-story and very much appreciated. Thank you.