Identify This Mandolin For a Friend a At Church

[wallygator]

Need help guys...anybody able to identify this model?

[journeybear]

Looks like a Kay to me, probably 1940s. People with more expertise and expert eyes will be able to provide more info.

[MikeEdgerton]

It was indeed built by Kay in Chicago. Post a picture of the headstock from the back. The tuners can be used at times to date these.

[NickR]

It has a Bakelite bridge and Michael Wright in his book reckoned that Kay stopped using this and went back to wood in 1938. Kay started using Kluson tuners in the very late 30s but this mandolin probably has the oblong Waverly type of tuners. As suggested above, post some photos of the back.

[Jim Garber]

I believe in that era and with that headstock—I call it more of a "footstock"—there were generally branded Kay Kraft. Fancier one on this thread (https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/threads/80667-Is-this-a-1930s-Kay-Kraft). OP's here might be a wholesale model, plain, unlabelled and sold to retailers for their own branding.

[NickR]

Jim that mandolin in the link you provided is a beauty. You can see it has the new style rosewood bridge and Kluson tuners. Kerry Krishna dated it to 1939 which I think is correct- it might be a little later as well- 1940. With regard to the mandolin in this thread, it is almost certainly one sold by a third party. It may be as early as about 1935. Many were sold by Wards unbranded - as opposed to their Recording King line. At one point Wards started getting a date stamped inside their instruments- a month and year and this was done for a while. I would assume that if there was one inside this mandolin, it would have been spotted but it is possible nobody has got around to shining a torch inside . My Wards Model 1642 is dated by its FON as 1936 and there is a Wards stamp that states Feb 1937 inside.