View Full Version : The mandolin that floats your boat...
I'm not normally a fan of the German Folk-Art style mandolins, but this one with a carved ship in the soundhole caught my eye.
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https://soundcloud.com/john-maddock/german-folk-art-mandolin-demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4hk33aWQNQ&feature=youtu.be
That would be a hard one for me to avoid. Wow.
Jake Wildwood
Jan-12-2014, 8:13pm
I like that spare f-board inlay, too.
Pete Jenner
Jan-14-2014, 8:07am
I like a soundhole with a ship in it innit.
Bob Clark
Jan-14-2014, 8:16am
Wow, that one's a beauty!
peterk
Jan-14-2014, 9:20am
That mandolin sounds very good, and if it plays well (radiused fretboard), then you've got a very desireable instrument form the music making perspective.
Furthermore, I think that sizing the instrument in such a way that the scale ends well ahead of the cant makes lottsa sense from the intonation adjustment standpoint.
That mandolin sounds very good, and if it plays well (radiused fretboard), then you've got a very desireable instrument form the music making perspective.
Furthermore, I think that sizing the instrument in such a way that the scale ends well ahead of the cant makes lottsa sense from the intonation adjustment standpoint.
It's a curious one this one, fretboard is quite noticeably radiused and fretted with T fretwire (don't know if that's original or part of the 1970's repairs it had) which makes it one of the easiest bowls to play on that I've had - particularly for slides which are always an issue for me on bar frets. On the other hand there are only 15 frets which isn't really enough! The body is also somewhat asymmetrical: the centre seem doesn't quite run down the middle of the top and the tailpiece (or rather the body it attaches to) isn't quite straight. Likewise the bridge is much further forward than usual (though DeMeglios are a bit that way as well), and even the soundhole is further up the board than usual. My suspicion is that it was either a prototype, or a one off made by someone not normally specializing in mandolins. Given that these German (GDR period?) mandolins were never named we'll probably never know it's history. Does sound quite decent though...