Help identifying these 2 please...

[Grad]

Hi,

I have recently come into possession of these 2.
I believe one is a banjo-mandolin and the second, with the round back a mandolin.

121221 121222

121223 121224

Neither have labels inside etc but the banjo-mandolin does have Carmelo Catania on the top of the neck.

From what I am told they belonged to my grandad before he met my gran so that would put them before 1945.

Any help or further information on them would be brilliant... thanks in advance!

[allenhopkins]

Quite possibly both instruments were made by Carmelo Catania, a Sicilian firm located, coincidentally, in Catania.

Here's (http://www.fetishguitars.com/portfolio/eko-before-eko-the-history/) an article on the company. A search here will yield other threads on Carmelo Catania instruments, which apparently are not uncommon.

I will yield to Cafe´members with more bowl-back expertise, as to whether the bowl-back mandolin is likely from Carmelo Catania. The other instrument is indeed a mandolin-banjo, and the company did make them.