Unusual 1906 Gibson A4?

[mikejkeen]

Hi

I recently bought this 1906 Gibson, in England, with a loose fretboard and neck damage - had been dropped. The Irish man I bought it from told me it had come from New York where it was going to be thrown away as rubbish. I'n not sure if that true, but it dis have some plaster dust inside.

In the past it's had a tenon joint inserted to beef up the neck, and the original peghead inlay has been replaced with the later vase inlay. This repair is very well done so might have been done in the factory.

The pickguard butterfly inlay appears to be original, but is unusual if not unique.

Does anyone recognise this mandolin, or know anything about it's history.

The tail block was loose and the both front and back were coming off so I'm in the middle of repairing it.

Regards Mike

[Jim Garber]

That flowerpot looks a little odd in that picture. First of all it is truncated like the truss rod ones. Early flowerpots were longer. I am not even sure they had flowerpots on A4s or any A models. Pardon me for not checking the archives... someone can certainly correct me on that issue.

[MikeEdgerton]

The inlay on the fretboard is on a few mandolins in the archive. I found nothing with a flower pot, most had the fleur-de-lis. Some had the torch and wire.

Same inlay (http://www.mandolinarchive.com/perl/show_mando.pl?3760)

[Jim Garber]

I, too, have seen the fretboard inlays but not the flowerpot.

[mikejkeen]

As I mentioned in my first post the flowerpot inlay (I called it vase inlay) is obviously later - added when the neck was repaired. It would have originally had fleur-de-lis. You can see a block of veneer has been cut into the peghead. The Gibson on the Peghead and the other inlay appears to be original. Serial number is 5655 the one above it in the archive is similar.

The fretboard inlay is the type found on early artists model. I've not seen a picture of a similar pickguard inlay.

Neck and top are now back together, back going on soon.


Cheers Mike

[Jim Garber]

I think, in general, those inlaid pickguards were the place that the artists at Gibson had their fun and showed their creativity. IIRC there are few that are exactly alike.

[AlanN]

I owned a very similar A-4, had a pineapple tailpiece. Mine also had the F-de-L in the headstock.

[mikejkeen]

The pineapple tailpiece cover is missing on this. I'm going to try and make one with brass sheet and nickel plate it. Don't think I'llbe able to engrave it with the Gibson Log- too difficult

[danb]

Mike, the neck inlay is described in catlogs as "artist model inlay". Here are a couple examples.. also an inlaid pickguard with a small butterfly on an F4

65532

65533

65534

As to unique designs- I thought so too, at first, but have generally seen at least a couple examples of each type, so it's hard to say if they are unique or not until we fill in more of the gaps in the "fossil record" here!