View Full Version : A pair of restored mandolinettos (Neapolitan college of music)
Just finished off these two - I really like these old mandolinettos - nice sounding and easy to play (very "modern" neck profile, easy to hold etc) even if they almost always fall apart at some point and usually need quite extensive repairs! These are two out of the three models that were made - the third was strangly violin shaped and had no picture on the back.
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If I couldn't play a modern instrument (or a vintage Gibson) then I'd be very happy with one of these I think! Here's the quick demo of the two instruments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj11CLXyuzg&feature=youtu.be
Pete Jenner
Sep-10-2014, 8:04am
Tavy, what is the scale length?
I did not know, till I heard your video, how good they could sound. I just haven't been paying attention until now. A whole new set of questions suddenly comes to mind.
they almost always fall apart at some point and usually need quite extensive repairs
Do you mean to say they don't last, or that they fail in predictable ways, or that they are fragile and can't be played hard? Can a vintage mandolinetto be used as a gigging jamming instrument, or is it better to be coddled and kept home to play after dinner?
brunello97
Sep-10-2014, 10:40am
Nice work, John. I enjoyed the video as well.
I've always liked the look of these--the wider body than the US mandolinettos--and of course the cool decals on the back.
Any idea where these were made? Germany? Italy? Somewhere else?
Mick
Pete: scale length is the short 13" variety.
Jeff: once restored they should be reasonably robust as long as you don't over string them (I have Martin 10-34's on these). The issue is that the backs and sides are made from slab cut maple with the "figure" painted on. The backs almost always seem to shrink over time, so all three of these I've had now have either needed repairs there, or have had the backs off in the past already. The neck is held on via a tiny dovetail which can be reset (lady with tamborine above needed this), but not overly robust, hense the need for lightweight strings. Personally I wouldn't gig with one as I really need something pickup-equipped, but I wouldn't hesitate to take one to an acoustic session.
Mick: the pictures on the back are almost certainly not decals - the paint is really very thick and really is paint too - my guess would be block printing or something, but I really have no idea? As for where they were made: the string tensioner is pure Italian, the shape is like nothing else around, the dovetail neck joint says anywhere but Italy frankly... oh, and they only ever show up in the UK. So... I would guess some (probably London based?) shop commissioned these to be made, but where and from whom is anyone's guess... they're just like nothing else I've seen. Materials are somewhat shoddy frankly: slab cut mable backs and sides, made up to look like curly maple, probably not very well seasoned given that the backs are almost always shrunken and/or falling off, fretboard on lady with tamborine one is two different colors (rosewood: probably cut into the sapwood) that would have been rejected by anyone else... but... they do sound good. Someone clearly new what they were doing and did a good job in designing these. Oh, and the brace next to the soundhole always has a metal "weight" screwed into it... I mean really...! Who thought that one up? Never seen it before in any other make, I can't honestly believe it helps the sound, and yet what else was it put in for?
All round very weird, and a complete mystery. Only thing I'm reasonable sure of is that the lables on these are pure marketing fiction!
sgrexa
Sep-10-2014, 1:56pm
Mandolinettos are very cool, but seem to confuse people. When I sold a recent modern example, I had at least 5 people ask me how it was tuned and was it like a "little" mandolin, etc. Just to clear this up hopefully, they are smaller scaled guitar shaped mandolins, tuned just like a mandolin. "Like a mandolin, but an octave higher?" No, just like a mandolin. Thanks!
Sean
Graham McDonald
Sep-10-2014, 5:18pm
I think a German origin, mostly because of the two coloured celluloid scratchplates. It would be interesting to know how the pictures on the back were done. I suppose they have to be printed, but on what? There are also the other very oddly shaped guitar mandolins with the upper bout larger than the lower which use similar scratchplates, also claiming to be from the Neapolitan School of Music or several other such fictitious schools. I have a pic of one of those I can post tonight.
brunello97
Sep-10-2014, 7:54pm
...It would be interesting to know how the pictures on the back were done...
No argument from me, John, about the images. I've never seen one in the flesh so was imagining what they might have been.
Here is the group I have in my files. If these are hand painted, it is a remarkable (if not unbelievable) degree of similarity between them. I wonder what other types of duplication / transfer processes might have been available at the time?
Mick
Marty Jacobson
Sep-10-2014, 9:00pm
Lithography of some sort, probably. How old are waterslide decals?
Graham McDonald
Sep-10-2014, 11:49pm
Google can be your friend! I found this (http://ceramicdecals.org/History_of_Decals.html) page which is a history of decals on ceramics, but it seems entirely possible that the use of duplex paper (mentioned towards the end of the article) in the 1890s could explain how these mandolins were printed on the back.
Another site (http://www.surfcrazy.com/stanleys/html/decalcollecting.html) about decals used on surfboards suggests that the introduction of nitro-cellulose lacquers in the 1920s provided the process for the decorations found on numerous cheap Harmony and Kay mandolins in the 30s. The ink was printed onto a layer of clear lacquer which was over a soluble layer which could then be briefly soaked and slid off the backing paper.
Graham McDonald
Sep-11-2014, 2:12am
One of the other oddly shaped German (I think) mandolins with a similar scratchplate
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brunello97
Sep-11-2014, 8:21am
Lithography of some sort, probably. How old are waterslide decals?
Marty, this is what I had long thought about these and the description that Graham linked to is standard knowledge. I was just responding to John's estimation that there was a thickness to the image, a la impasto in painting.
Any type of lithographic transfer (for a reproducible print) would use ink that was applied quite thinly. (My grandfather was a commercial lithographer roughly in the same era--a decade or so later, actually.) It would be very difficult to get the kinds of color gradients we see here with a block printing method.
Maybe we can ask John to post a close up image of the gypsy woman perhaps at enough of an angle to see the thickness he is speaking about? Could it be the thickness of the (possibly decal) transfer backing?
Not meaning to be argumentative here at all, just trying to understand something I've long wondered about. I've always liked the shape of these mandolinettos and loved the images on the back. Glad to hear from John that they play and sound nice as well.
Mick
JeffD
Sep-11-2014, 10:00am
What accounts for their lovely tone? I know that trying to talk about tone with any precision is kind of foolish, but the sound of those two just knocks me down.
Is it something about the woods, or the construction, or is it just the larger guitarish body.
Has anyone taken up making a modern mandolineteto, and what were the results? Did it transcend a mere guitar bodied mandolin, or is that all this really is.
That tone is special - to my ears anyway.
What accounts for their lovely tone? I know that trying to talk about tone with any precision is kind of foolish, but the sound of those two just knocks me down.
Is it something about the woods, or the construction, or is it just the larger guitarish body.
Could be the player? :whistling:
I don't think it's the body shape, I just think they were lightly built to a decent design - the body is quite wide by the standards of the day so the top has a decently low frequency resonance, presumably well matched to the main body resonance.
Has anyone taken up making a modern mandolineteto, and what were the results? Did it transcend a mere guitar bodied mandolin, or is that all this really is.
That tone is special - to my ears anyway.
Nigel Forster has certainly built one (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?56748-Mandolinetto), my two are more K-shaped does that count?
As for the tone - I think these are very good for Celtic tunes and/or for a bit of "thrash mandolin" two finger chord backup (think Bellowhead or the bad shephards). They're probably less effective at doing really subtle stuff - I say "probably" because I haven't spent enough time on either of these to really get to grips with exactly where their limits are.
Pete Jenner
Sep-12-2014, 7:43am
So is it just the body shape that differentiates a mandolinetto?
Bill Snyder
Sep-12-2014, 10:21am
It is just a mandolin. Plane and simple.
Could be the player? :whistling:
Could well be :) And/or your recording rig. :))
Nigel Forster has certainly built one (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?56748-Mandolinetto), my two are more K-shaped does that count?
See I need to pay better attention.
As for the tone - I think these are very good for Celtic tunes and/or for a bit of "thrash mandolin" two finger chord backup (think Bellowhead or the bad shephards). They're probably less effective at doing really subtle stuff - I say "probably" because I haven't spent enough time on either of these to really get to grips with exactly where their limits are.
I don't know. The sound on your recording here inspires me to try slow waltzes and that kind of thing. Ballads and slow aires, some classical.
Jake Wildwood
Sep-13-2014, 7:46am
What I like about 'em is the big size-- sorta fun to strut around with something like that, huh? Good work, as usual. :D
Pete Jenner
Sep-13-2014, 10:50am
It is just a mandolin. Plane and simple.
It's ok post #7 in this (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?74899-Is-this-a-Mandolinetto) thread actually answers my question.