Bowlbacks of Note

[nk70]

thank you Jim...you are right about the pickguard... there are also more than 42 ribs in that mandolin(i think almost 60)
i went to the luthier with the owner of the mandolin...it seems to need some work with missing inlay around the top but the difficult thing is the fretboard... the luthier asked almost 1000 euros for a complete and detailied restoration...!!!!! the owner seems that he would sell it less than 3500... i guess paying him 2000 cash it would be ok for him but still expensive enough for me...
the luthier took higher resolution pics so one of the next days i'll get them and send to you...
i really thank you for your interest and all the useful information
Nikos

[Jim Garber]

Sort of interesting older mandolin in funky condition. Not sure what to make of it. It doesn't look like an early 19th century European one... or does it?

[brunello97]

Wow. Whoever owned this must have been a lightening fast player for the neck to melt down like that. I thought all the cracks about baling wire strings were just jokes. Apparently not. Nice to think of it as a home-made mandolin.

I like the 'coffin style' case.

Mick

[Bob A]

It seems to have some interesting features. The pickguard looks old-fashioned, and of course the friction pegs, and the ivory? bone? endpin. What sells me that it's not homemade is the interesting skirt, which speaks to a certain level of craftsmanship. Some sort of mid-19th centansitional item, would be my guess from a cursory examination of postage-stamp sized photos.

[Bob A]

A 1982 Calace from Wm Petit in france. !6 hrs to go, now at 500 Euros.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Mandoline-Calace...3A1%7C294%3A50

[Giannis Tsoulogiannis]

Ugh, brutal on the repair job -- those are the kind of jobs I simply dissuade people from when they come to me with one like that.

Check this restoration.Excellent work.
http://sinierderidder.free.fr/gb/maingb.html

[Jim Garber]

Check this restoration.Excellent work.
http://sinierderidder.free.fr/gb/maingb.html

You mean this Embergher restoration?

[Giannis Tsoulogiannis]

Yes .My mistake.

[Giannis Tsoulogiannis]

The Stearns collection Stathopoulo Mandolin(1912)

[Jim Garber]

Yes .My mistake.

No, no mistake... the site is just set up in frames and the restoration page is in it sown frame. I just linked directly to that frame.

[vkioulaphides]

While Spartan and not Ionian, Stathopoulos managed to get a tasteful, geometric meander on the purfling... GLORIOUS!

Cheers,

Victor

[Giannis Tsoulogiannis]

It's beautifull.I am happy that i have it's older brother.

[Bob A]

If I weren't both broke and awash in bowlbacks, I'd jump on this one in the cafe classifieds.

http://www.mandolincafe.com/cgi-bin/...uery=retrieval

[vkioulaphides]

Pretty, indeed... My excuse is my abject lack of time these days. Curiously --thankfully?-- I have had TONS of (bass-playing) work lately, plus I do have this annoying habit of sitting down to scribble round, little notes on five-lined paper.

I will pass although, like Bob, I find this morsel most delicious.

Cheers,

Victor

[brunello97]

'...awash in bowlbacks' is a great line, Bob, and an enviable position. I've been scurrying about all winter trying to keep everything hydrated. I thought Central Texas was dry......

Anyhow, the Maratea looks nice, but the "lowish, playable" action sounds muy sketchioso. I've heard that one before viz Italian bowls. Sometimes I wonder if the catchall 'overstrung' is really the applicable reason so many of these necks go out. I've seen Embergher and Vinaccia bracing that looks as if the builders anticipated problems and improved the design accordingly. Does this quality control hold 75 years later, or were they just better cared for mandolins, due to their initial value?

I may be a bit warped here, but is the slightly stouter construction of the Great Lakes Rim bowlbacks a reason for their marginally better (purely anecdotally speaking) neck survival rate? Would the typical use of mahogany in Chicago/PA/Boston-rather than veneered softwoods in Italia-offer some benefits?

Is having been kept in a case a better predictor of neck viability than the oft posited stringing errors? (Not doubting that many bowlbacks were overstrung, but wondering about the ultimate contribution of neck/bracing design and ultimate longevity.)

I've had the bowls back out this winter after a delightful and leisurely finger stretching bliss with the products of Western Michigan. BB/FB. I swing both ways. Body and Soul.

Mick

[Bob A]

My experience with Italian bowls is that they are in general rather more lightly-built than their US counterparts, which contributes to their particular sound. I have a couple with some problems; a bit of buzzing, a poor setup, a "restored" instrument the restoration of which seemed to be a thick coat of varnish applied with a paintbrush. On many the necks are of a softwood with a laminated veneer of rosewood. Of course the paper-thin fretboards contribute only a little to the integrity of the neck. (BTW, my 1922 Calace is free from most of these problems, being remarkably stoutly-built. It's the only example I've held, so it's best not to infer too much).

That said, and given the limitations inherent in 100 year old instruments, (somewhat wavy bellies, somewhat worn frets, bridges/saddles in need of adjustment, the odd rib separation), I find them for the most part playable, some eminently so.

My remaining US instruments comprise a Larson Stahl, an early Martin 6 in need of restoration, and a Vega Pettine Special. No problems with the two at present, though both required professional attention when first received. (Braces glued, tuner button work, a couple top cracks and a spot of french polishing). They are, as you noted, more robustly constructed than their Mediterranean counterparts, and have the indescribable (by me, at any rate) US tone. Maybe more inclined to the fundamentals, not so much in the way of high partials? Strong players, with surprising power.

I've been fortunate to have missed out on buying into bowlback neck problems, it would seem. Though the design, with a soundhole in a place carefully judged to produce a corresponding sinking of the neck into the body of the instrument, makes me wonder if the early Neapolitan makers were not the first to utilise the concept of planned obsolescence. The f-holes of the Waldo make a lot of sense structurally, taking wood away from areas of low stress. (Disclaimer: I have no Waldo, not have I been bribed by the manufacturer).

I do run on. And sympathise with humidification worries: my huge Sears unit gave up the ghost just before my boiler ceased to function; took a week to get regular heat returned, and I have a small Vornado trying to keep the RH in the neighborhood of 33%. I breathe into each instrument as I pick it up and pack it away, and I am careful to eat fresh garlic daily to make them feel at home in this process, a sort of constant struggle to re-animate, the breath of life for a mandolin.

[vkioulaphides]

On planned obsolescence: Disney urged his animators relentlessly to accelerate the disintegration of Cinderella's carriage into a pumpkin, as she was rushing home, past the sounding of midnight. In one memo to his chief-of-staff he wrote, "It must be so. That's how the Fairy Union has set it up. If they performed miracles that lasted, they'd soon be out of business."

No miracle lasts forever. Our little, strung miracles last for quite a long time, all things considered. We must be calm and accepting of this fact, painful as it may be at times. Some of us will cherish vanishing glory, be it visual, aural, or both. Others among us will commission brand new miracles, knowing full well that in time they, too, will warp and sink in all sorts of ways, predictable or not. The latter group will encourage "new blood" to flow, such as Messrs. Dean, Lippi, van den Broek, et al. in the continuum of lutherie. All is well.

[Bob A]

I dare say there's room enough for both the old (and certainly I'm one of those) and the new; preserving the old will help ensure a continuity of design and structure that willl permit the music as we know it to sound forth into the future. (God help me, this sort of diction is what happens when listening to the ravings of the political class).

I've been disappointed in the promises of American guitar companies who "re-issue" the instruments which some of us reactionaries feel were the best ever made, at least in a factory setting; I can hope that the mandolins of the future will be faithful to the designs of those of the past that I so admire. Mayhap I'm grasping at a sound and function that never was; perhaps what I so admire is merely an artifact, the sad remains of what once was totally different. I dunno. Certainly the Neapolitan mandolin is no Strad or Guarneri; was never intended to be so, and by its very nature it cannot survive and improve over a time measured in centuries.

At any rate, Victor is quite right. We must encourage and support the work of today's fine luthiers if we are to bequeath any part of our instrumental passion to those who will, hopefully, follow.

[brunello97]

Here is a journeyman(dolin) American Conservatory bowl which further blurs the distinction between the AC and Washburn lines. It appears to be in quite good condition. But what is of particular 'note' is the provenance. According to the seller it was owned by one Clarence Mitchell a journeyman southpaw who threw the "last legal spitball" in MLB. A very timely sales tag as the Grapefruit League warms up. The wood selection, though, on L+H mandolins from this period never ceases to amaze me. A sweet instrument that will sell for what, $125? That never ceases to amaze me either.

Mick

[Martin Jonas]

This Ceccherini on Ebay UK looks to be in immaculate condition and is at only GBP103 with a day and a half to go. Looks very similar to mine, except for a slightly different (older?) style of tuners. One can't see it in the photos, but I would be 99% certain that this one has the characteristic double-top construction.

Rather a shame that this Angara & d'Isanto is about as far from immaculate as possible, but it does have a beautiful clown shoe case with it.

This mandolin is said to be a de Meglio from 1886, and if that is indeed what the label says, then it would be a very early and very untypical de Meglio -- it looks nothing like the archetypal model from that builder and is essentially a Vinaccia clone. I find the drawings or etchings on the soundboard both over-the-top and unappealing and wonder whether they may be aftermarket. The mandolin would look much better without them.

I think Euterpia was a French maker -- I quite like this one.

Martin

[brunello97]

I agree, Martin, the Euterpia has a nice character to it. And the Ceccherini remains hovering at an accessible price.....

Here is an interesting wartime Calace with Germano/Portugese style 'bulge-back'.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...E:B:SS:US:1123

I am away from my home computer to check whether I have one on file. It seems like I remember seeing a Calace flatback posted here at one-maybe also from the '40s. I imagine the market for mandolins might have been shrunk a bit in 1943, but happy to see that at least some production continued amidst the madness.

Mick

[Jim Garber]

Looks like Calace was catering to the German market with that rounded profile and slightly vaulted back. Reminds me of Seiffert mandolins and some of the contemporary German bowlbacks.

[Martin Jonas]

It seems like I remember seeing a Calace flatback posted here at one-maybe also from the '40s.

This is only the second Calace flatback I have ever seen, the other one being the one you are presumably thinking of, which was dated 1944 and which was listed on Ebay twice, abotu half a year apart. Otherwise few similarities, though: the 1944 flatback had a single-piece back and was much more austere. Most strikingly, it appeared that the supplies of finely-made tuners had dried up and it had crude-looking all-metal tuners. Still, it's a miracle that any mandolins were made in Naples in 1943 and 1944 -- in those years, Southern Italy saw some of the heaviest fighting of the entire war, especially at Monte Cassino, which is only about 50km from Naples.

Martin

[brunello97]

Martin, I did find an image of the Calace flatback (indeed 1944) in my files, but unfortunately not of the back.

Mick

[Jim Garber]

Mick, et al... that one was on eBay twice in 06.

I think the back was a sort of boatback. Not great pics of the back but here isd what I have.