View Full Version : c.1920 Martin Style A Flatback Mando
Jake Wildwood
Nov-20-2011, 2:48pm
Here's a honey I'm totally wanting to buy from its customer-owner...!
More photos/etc. at the blog (click here). (http://antebelluminstruments.blogspot.com/2011/11/c1920-martin-style-flatback-mandolin.html)
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pO4ZSmy8kII/TslXIPBG6_I/AAAAAAAAQF0/EwT_jhlx9t0/s1600/mmand1.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OqwiLZf0HW4/TslXH9rsqBI/AAAAAAAAQFk/ApkzuOuZ2Tk/s1600/mmand2.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ht45aTqyaHE/TslXAFG6eOI/AAAAAAAAQFM/7AfO-G8Mj30/s1600/mmand4.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nNt0OwrbbBA/TslWU9nD78I/AAAAAAAAQD0/J4f7L7JJPFo/s1600/mmand11.jpg
crazymandolinist
Nov-20-2011, 3:10pm
:disbelief:
That is stunning.
Jake Wildwood
Nov-20-2011, 5:32pm
Yeah, it's killer. I really, really want this mando. I haven't had such mando lust for a while, now, and it's happened in the space of a couple days -- on Friday I was playing with Rick Redington in town and got to have my hands on a number of Rigel instruments the whole gig. If only I had the cash laying around!!!
MandoSquirrel
Nov-20-2011, 8:35pm
It certainly is a lust provoker; ugly as sin.
(if sin were ugly, it wouldn't be tempting, would it?)
Jake Wildwood
Nov-20-2011, 11:18pm
Heh, read the serial wrong... it's a 1919 to be precise.
Lovely instrument Jake, interesting how small those dot markers are - and the double dot on the 7th fret??
MikeEdgerton
Nov-21-2011, 5:56am
If I recall Martin used clay to make those dots. It isn't pearl.
Jake Wildwood
Nov-21-2011, 10:16am
Mike: Exactly right.
Tavy: A carry-over from their guitar line.
brunello97
Nov-21-2011, 10:54am
If I recall Martin used clay to make those dots. It isn't pearl.
Hmmm, from MOP to MOTS by way of the actual TB itself.
1919. Any way of telling whether Martin was still using red spruce or had begun to bring in sitka for its mandolins by this time? (Not that I could visually tell the difference…..) Interesting conversation around the broader topic here:
http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?79073-Spruce-species-on-Snakeheads
Mick
Jake Wildwood
Nov-21-2011, 3:04pm
I'm pretty sure Martin used red pretty much all the way up to WWII, no?
brunello97
Nov-21-2011, 4:59pm
Jake, I have no way to know. (Though I did have an '00s bowl and a mid '20s B for awhile...) Someone in the conversation in the thread I linked above implied that around this time Martin was getting sitka spruce for guitars from post WWI surplus aircraft material. That sounded like an interesting story.. No reference to mandolin construction, however.
Mick
JGWoods
Nov-23-2011, 10:14am
I love my '42 Martin bent top A. I got it from Charles Johnson and he said it was a Adirondack top. I take him at his word with no reason to doubt.
The old Martins are so wonderfully light and have a big enough body to make for a really fine player. I like the 13" scale as well. At this time I find myself playing the Martin rather than my 1917 Gibson A4 which is a fine mandolin too, but the Martin just does it for me now.
It baffles me why the Martins sell for such low prices when comparing to the old Gibson As. I guess folks have locked in on the longer Gibson scale and wider nut as requirements for their mandolin purchases. Oh well, bargains are to be had for the rest of us who have discovered the delights of the old bent tops.