Jim Yates
Jan-28-2019, 12:17pm
I'd like to find as much information on this mandolin as possible. I've had it for a couple of decades.
174379
Weren't they something to do with Lyon & Healy?
allenhopkins
Jan-28-2019, 6:24pm
The original Washburn brand was a higher-end product line of Lyon & Healy; "Washburn" was George Lyon's middle name. Lyon & Healy made Washburn-labeled instruments until 1928, when the brand was sold. Later Washburn instruments were made by Regal and (yes!) Gibson, into the early 1940's.
The brand went defunct, to be resurrected in the 1970's, and applied to Asian-made imports. It's been owned by Fretted Industries, US Music Co., and now by JAM Industries since 2009, according to Wikipedia.
Yours appears to be one of the imports, as shown by the "M" prefix. According to this thread, (https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/threads/37689-Washburn-m-7sn) "7" denotes a top-line instrument, and "S" that it's all solid woods. Both of which are Good Things.
Here's (http://forums.washburn.com/index.php?topic=12729.0) a ten-year-old thread from the Washburn Forum, talking about the M-7S "Country" mandolin; may give you some info.