PDA

View Full Version : A family of mandolins



Martin Jonas
Jun-26-2004, 1:13pm
I just got a new digital camera, so what better subject for the trial shots than a few family photographs. Here are four of our mandolins, my three plus my mother's bowlback

From left to right:

1) Ceccherini: By far the classiest of the four, I bought this one a month ago on Ebay and after lowering the action by shaving away the top of the saddle support (the saddle is a replaceable round brass rod) and restringing it with Lenzner Consort strings, it is now fully playable and a joy to play. The only date on the label is "Premiata all'Esposizione di Milano, 1881", so it's clearly post-1881 and probably pre-1900.

2) Majestic "Portuguese style" flatback: This one has been in our family since my grandfather bought it in Germany in the 1930s. It was used then, probably built in the 1920s or 1930s in Germany. Not a very classy instrument, but very playable and a nice, warm tone. Until a few months ago, this was my only mandolin.

3) A 1989 Washburn M3-SW, which I bought on Ebay this February. For a pac-rim, this is very nice and complements my other mandolins well. I've replaced the original bridge with a Cumberland Acoustic ebony bridge, which helped a lot. I prefer the subdued brown sunburst over the more orange ones that the current models have.

4) My mother's Miroglio bowlback. In the family since my mother bought it in Germany in the mid-1950s (or more precisely, my grandmother bought it for her). Again, this was used at the time and may well be pre-war. This was bought because the mandolin orchestra she wanted to join wouldn't let her play the Majestic: "the only good mandolin is a bowlback mandolin!". It wouldn't have been very expensive at the time (although the orchestra subsidised it), but it has done her good service over the last fifty years.

There's one mandolin missing: my mother just bought a new Kentucky KM-380s, because she wanted to have a flatback to complement the Miroglio, as she's started to play a lot of bluegrass and Celtic tunes recently.

More pictures in the next few posts!

Martin

Martin Jonas
Jun-26-2004, 1:15pm
Here are the same four mandolins from the back.

Martin

Martin Jonas
Jun-26-2004, 1:19pm
Here's the front of the Ceccherini. The top is really very dark (in fact pretty much as dark as the back and nothing like the blonde spruce one normally sees in bowlbacks) and I'm not sure whether this is the result of natural ageing, possibly enhanced by being exposed to light for a few decades (I think it spent some time hanging on a wall), or whether somebody added some stain or other finish to it during restoring, which darkened it.

Martin

Martin Jonas
Jun-26-2004, 1:24pm
Here's the Ceccherini from the side. The picture shows quite nicely just how thin the ebony fretoboard is and how close to the soundboard the strings run. It also illustrates the degree of arching in the top: the picture is exactly side on, as can be seen from the strings and the fact that none of the soundhole is visible. Thus, the distance from the binding to the crown is the height of the arch.

Martin

Martin Jonas
Jun-26-2004, 1:28pm
Here's a closer look at the bridge area, showing the construction with a removable brass saddle sitting on a flat support. The bridge slots provide the string spacing, but do not affect tone.

The inlay on the tortoiseshell pickguard is silver and mother-of-pearl. The binding is wood (a small segment on the left hand side of the picture was repaired somewhat crudely at some stage).

Martin

Martin Jonas
Jun-26-2004, 1:33pm
This is the bridge and string downholding bar from the side. I've lowered the action by shaving away the top of the bridge, where it supports the saddle. As a result, the action is now very playable (just under 2.5mm on the G string, 12th fret and just over 2mm on the E string), but the strings run so close to the soundboard that the original string downholder wasn't doing any downholding anymore. I've added some foam rubber pads to the underside of the bar, so that there is again a slight string angle at the bar (the rubber also acts as a dampener).

Martin

Martin Jonas
Jun-26-2004, 1:37pm
The last shot of the Ceccherini: a side view of the nut, showing the clever way that the Ceccherini nut works: this is a single brass piece acting as nut/string spacer and zero fret combined. At the headstock side of the nut are the slot providing the string spacing and at the bridge side of the nut, there is a flat brass bar acting as zero fret. As a result, the open strings are terminated by brass at the nut and the bridge, giving a great consistency of tone between open and fretted notes.

Martin

Jim Garber
Jun-26-2004, 1:39pm
Martin:
It is nice to finally see the Ceccherini after hearing about it for some time. it looks like a nice one. Enjoy it!

Can you get a shot of the label?

Jim

Martin Jonas
Jun-26-2004, 1:43pm
To finish off, a couple of shots of the Miroglio. #The "pickguard" and "binding" are both fake, just painted on the soundboard. #The slotted headstock isn't very elegant (a bit large for the size of the instrument) and the tuners were replaced by my father many decades ago, when the original buttons broke. #The fretboard extension used to be much longer, reaching the other end of the soundhole, but my mother got fed up with hitting the frets with her plectrum and got my father to remove it. #Still, it's a very playable instrument, just a bit quiet and with a slightly nasal tone.

Martin

Martin Jonas
Jun-26-2004, 1:46pm
I think this last photo illustrates the (to me) most interesting feature of the Miroglio: it has a strongly radiused fretboard and the bridge, fretboard and nut are all distinctly assymetric, with a steep slope from the G to the E side. It helps the playability a lot, with an easier pinky stretch for the 7th/8th fret in first position than on the other mandolins.

Martin

Martin Jonas
Jun-26-2004, 3:58pm
Martin:
It is nice to finally see the Ceccherini after hearing about it for some time. it looks like a nice one. Enjoy it!

Can you get a shot of the label?
Sure -- here you are. I don't seem to be able to get all of the label in one shot. The bit at the bottom says:

"Sole Agents: ALBAN VOIGT & Co., 14, Edmund Place, London, E.C."

So, clearly, this was labelled up for an English distributor at the time of manufacture and as I bought it on Ebay UK, it doesn't seem to have ever left the country.

Martin

Bob A
Jun-27-2004, 10:17pm
Interestingly enough, the Ceccherini I bought recently was also sold thru Alban Voigt. It had the number 2302 at the bottom left of the label; I assume this was Voigt's tracking number rather than something that might be found on all Ceccherinis, like a serial number. (It is my probably unfounded opinion that concepts like serial numbers were foreign to the Italian makers).

The Sinier de Ridder site has a Ceccherini, also with the Voigt label. It would be gratifying to an itching curiosity to have more info on this Voight/Ceccherini connection; even plain Voigt info would be of interest. (Perhaps a separate thread might attract more notice: if others also have the itch, we might re-post?)

Martin Jonas
Jun-28-2004, 3:22am
Can't help with the Alban Voigt connection, although a quick search at Google shows that the Voigt name appears in a number of instruments from the second half of the 19th century, including guitars and pianos.

The Sinier de Ridder Ceccherini makes an interesting comparison. It appears to be somewhat higher in the range than mine (it has the double top and a headstock inlay), but otherwise it's distinctly similar in terms of decoration. Its soundboard is very blonde, making the wooden binding contrast sharply (and rather nicely), whereas on mine the binding and the top have a similar colour (in fact more so than on the photos which make the top look lighter because of the different angle to the flash). The bridge construction is the same, but mine doesn't have the end pins. Neither of them have any sort of tailpiece cover. The Sinier de Ridder one seems to have some sort of felt dampening on the headstock next to the nut. I wonder if that's original.

No serial number on mine, incidently.

Martin