Mandolins old and new

[Marcus Horatius]

I wasn't sure exactly how to post pictures on this forum (help, someone!) but here's a link to my website with pictures of my mandolins:

http://www.pineapplepubs.co.uk/mymandolins.html

The old Neapolitan mando is a puzzle, as the case is stamped "British made" but other than that there is nothing to identify it. Someone once told me they thought it was probably c.1920s, but I've no idea if that's true. Can anyone make a suggestion?
M

[Jim Garber]

That bowlback is a difficult one. The label says British made? There were many Italian mandolins imported from 1900 on into the UK with importer's labels. I don't know too many actually British-made ones tho I would think there were some. This one does look like it copied some aspects of the Italian ones. My gut says 1930's or later. Here are the pics:

http://pineapplepubs.snazzystuff.co.uk/images/oldmando1.JPG

http://pineapplepubs.snazzystuff.co.uk/images/oldmando2.JPG

Jim

[Marcus Horatius]

Thanks for the feedback, Jim. And for adding the pics.

The case has a stamp that says "British made", but the mando itself has nothing to identify it. (I'm presuming the case is original, as it is as ancient looking and battered as the instrument!)

M

[Martin Jonas]

The case may well have been bought at the same time as the instrument, but that doesn't mean it was made by the same people. #Almost all old bowlbacks I've seen in the UK have been in the same generic cardboard cases. #Similarly, the only bowlback case that one can easily get these days is Korean-made, but that doesn't mean the instruments inside are Korean.

I would think either 1920s or 1930s, and if I had to guess a country, I'd say German-made. #The aesthetics, and in particular the two little holes on the sound board (which were also used by Calace, but are generally much more widespread in old German mandolins than in Italian ones) and the soundhole rose, point in that direction for me. #Also, for some reason few German pre-war makers put labels in their mandolins, whereas most Italian makers did.

Martin

[brunello97]

Martin,

Generally, (or specifically) did any of the German mandolin makers survive the war? i.e. in business before and then restarted after. Having just reread Plami's brief history of the GPuglisi works being bombed in Catania it made me think about the level of collateral (and intended) damage throughout Germany.

I had read that the Oper on UdL in Berlin was rebuilt during the war (only to be redestroyed-and rebuilt again.) Hopefully, the mandolin 'industry' was just as tenacious.

Mick

[Martin Jonas]

Mick,

The German musical instrument industry was concentrated in and around the small town of Markneukirchen (http://www.markneukirchen.de/engl/haupt.php), in the Vogtland area of Saxony. This is right on the border to the Czech Republic (only about three miles!), and in an area that the war largely passed by. The industry was almost entirely guild-based, with hundreds of Master luthiers all working in their own workshops and selling their instruments to the big wholesalers who may or may not have put their own brand on them. This is largely why few of these instruments had makers' labels: the wholesalers wanted anonymous instruments.

Such a decentralised industry should have survived the war as well as any part of the German infrastructure could have -- the skill was still there, the workshops were in individual rural houses which by and large were undestroyed, and the Erzgebirge hills just outside town had some of the best tonewoods in the world, so raw materials weren't a problem. However, having a market was a problem: in the immediate post-war years, survival was much higher up the scale of priorities than buying new instruments, and Germany's export markets were destroyed, too.

Much more disastrously for this industry, Markneukirchen happened to be just a few miles east of the border between Bavaria (which would come to be in West Germany) and Saxony (in East Germany). Just like all parts of industry, the Communist government also took over musical instrument production and destroyed the old guild system. For much of the period from 1950 to 1990, most instruments made in or around Markneukirchen were poor mass production, competing with Strunal and Hora products for the Eastern Bloc market and with Asian factory instruments at the lower end of the Western European market. However, some brands continued to be creditable, for example Otwin guitars and mandolins, and the skills continued to be passed on. After reunification in 1990, small shops opened again, albeit in nothing like the numbers that there had been in the 1920s and 1930s. Lenzner strings, for example, were refounded as a small family concern, having been part of the state music industry under the name of Goldfuchs.

Much of the West German postwar musical instrument industry was displaced companies either from the Vogtland or from the Sudetenland just over the Czech border from Markneukirchen, such as Framus, Maxima (was Optima) strings, Hopf, Hofner, Hoyer etc, and they by and large managed to re-establish their companies and their markets after the war. In addition, the guild system has survived in the West, and there have always been and still are skilled Master luthiers in small workshops all over Germany, training up apprentice luthiers within the formalised German craft guild system.

The photo below is from the official Markneukirchen homepage, and although the caption says "Workshop of a violin maker", there clearly is a mandolin bowl on the wall.

Martin

[brunello97]

Thanks, Martin for the overview. It is interesting to know some of these things with a better historical perspective. I have in-laws in Augsburg and we usually take the 43/45 route northward through Gottingen-though sometimes go the 51 up to Berlin. Seems like a stop in Markneukirchen might be worth it. (Not this summer, the work squeeze is coming down.)

Nice looking shop photo-however casually quaint. I'd enjoy seeing the old tools.

I wonder if this decentralized system was used in Italy as well. I've been amazed at the sheer number of different labels on low to mid end Italian bowlbacks. Maybe these were all independent builders but I'd be interested to know if guilds/co-ops or whatever were involved in producing complete units or parts of these many brands, to be tagged later with some of the more modest labeling often seen.

Mick