Wich instrument is this actualy?

[surion]

Hey all,

A few weeks ago I bought this instrument. Via an ebay-like site. The article said it is a mandola. But the more I'm searching, the more I think it is NOT a Mandola...
(I m new to these kinds of instruments, I am actualy a saxophone player :) )

It has the same tuning tough (G D A E).

And this is whats on the label inside:

"Atelier de Mandolines Guittares
Maëstro

Year: 1978
Serial N° 22XXX

Written name on the label: Bruno Dundeslisk"

Surfing around makes me think it is a mandoLute. Could it be?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandolute

Anyhow, it is a super nice instrument, and it has a very full, round sound.
I'm very very happy I bought it :)



Grz

[mrmando]

Europeans would call this a mandola; Yanks would call it an octave mandolin.

"Mandolute" was a model name used by Weymann Co. for large-bodied mandolin-family instruments.

There may be some Weymann influence on this design, but what I'm most curious about is the ridge across the body. Does this instrument have an extra soundboard? If so, it may have been influenced by Gelas, a French maker.

Very interesting bridge; haven't seen one quite like that before.

[surion]

Thanks for your reply :)

Since I'm european i'll call it Mandola :)

It has a extra soundboard. I'll ask my girlfriend if she can take some detail pictures of it this week. She took it with her to university for the week.
My english is not good enough to explain more details with words.

[mrmando]

This is very interesting; I'm not aware of Gelas-style instruments being made anywhere outside of France. And I have never heard of Bruno Dundeslisk.

Here is a very informative thread (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?32121-Gelas-mandolins) about Gelas, Rene Gerome, and other French makers of these instruments. It looks like most of them were based in Mirecourt.

If you are able to take a photo of the label, we'd be very interested to see it.

[Givson]

I'd call it an octave mandola.

[Malcolm G.]

Congratulations, Surion.

I have no idea what it is, but it sure looks cool.

[Jason Kessler]

"Extra soundboard" = Virzi?

[Tavy]

"Extra soundboard" = Virzi?

Not quite: the lower soundboard on the Gelas instruments is just like the regular soundboard on a normal mando (except that the strings pull the top up rather than push it down), and the upper "soundboard" is there primarily for decoration.

[Pali Sander]

Dear Surion,

I hope you will still read this though this thread is an old one. Your instrument must be a mandocello / mandoloncello. Looks like we own instruments from the same workshop. Mine was bought in 1981 in East Germany and for sure it was manufactured in the Vogtland area nearby called "Musicon Valley". I already asked a lot of luthiers but nobody had an idea about the manufacturer. These days I saw a mandola of the same design in an internet auction. It has a signatur inside, see photo. Maestro maybe a distributor, they did a lot of contract work that time. I am now searching for Bruno Wunderlich who might be the manufacturer. If you have any information about the manufacturer, please share.

Kind Regards
Uwe
www.penta-rhei.de

133012133013133014

[zedmando]

Well, whatever it is--it looks cool--I'd like to try it out.

[DDjazz]

Hi everybody. I own a lutherie guitar of 1960 from Maestro (i live in Italy). I spent a lot of time trying to track the origin of this instrument. Unfortunately the information i gathered are not much. My guitar bears a label on the headstock saying "Wassenaar’s Muziekhandels", which should be the retailer, located in the Netherlands (city of Hoorn), but it could also be the place of manufacture, as French is spoken in some areas of the Netherlands. This would explain why such instruments bear a label inside with the wording (in French) “Ateliers de mandolines et guitares”. I have found also a video of a Maestro mandolin on Utube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZOJNWZPrf8

[Hendrik Luurtsema]

Hello DDjazz, Wassenaar's Muziekhandel is defenitely not the manufacturer, it was a musicstore who sold records and instruments.
The owner of the company Roelof Wassenaar was also the founder of mandolinorchestra "Entre Nous" in 1922.
It's a very nice Jazz Guitar you have there, and I still think the old instruments where built in Markneukirchen with manufacturers like Otwin or later on Musima and Gewa.

[DDjazz]

Thanks for your feedback. Actually I contacted a number of collectors of East-Germany made guitars and all of them they said me that they never have seen or heard of this "Atelier". They also doubt that it is produced in Germany because, even though the design is certainly inspired to the German-style guitars (in particular, Isana), the label in French and the use of the diaeresis (the double point on the "e") in the label "Maëstro", which is not used at all in the German language, but is used in French, would confirm the French origin of such instruments. Maybe the only way to understand where such instruments are produced is to understand the meaning of that indication under the manufacture's name (Bruno Wunderlish) in the previous post. Among other thing, I can't find any Bruno Wunderlish in the list of German mandolins producers (here: http://www.harpguitars.net/history/makers.htm#o), but there is a Carl Anton Wunderlich.
In the label posted by Pali Sander I can read "gen. wastl", but I have no idea of the meaning of such wording. I thought that Wastl was the name of the city where the producer was located, but there is no city in Germany, France or the Netherlands with this name.

[DDjazz]

this is another Maestro Mandolin which is on sale on an auction (http://auction.catawiki.com/kavels/1035418-1961-maestro-mandola-gelas-style-france[/url]). The headstock also indicates Wassenaar’s Muziekhandels, and the owner is located in the Netherlands.
139468

[DDjazz]

Another mandola from maestro, also this one for sale in the Netherlands:

http://www.hboetzkes.com/producten/mandolinshop/vintage/maestro-mandoline-detail

[DavidKOS]

Nice instruments.

"It has the same tuning tough (G D A E). "

Octave mandolin in modern terms. Could be restrung as a mandocello, too.