Bandolim Tranquillo Giannini Para Colecionadores

[LikeTelevision]

Can anyone shed some light as to to the date of this wonderful Giannini Bandolim?
I buy a lot of Giannini guitars, and I can tell by the label, it's pretty old.

Thanks!

Jim

962139621496215

[Randi Gormley]

You can email them and they'll give you a rough estimate, but they lost a lot of their records in a fire a while back. OTOH, someone here might have a catalog that lists the particular type you have, so fingers crossed!

[Jim Garber]

I was watching that auction. So, you got it! I assume you do not have it in hand as yet? Please let us know.

I would say that this is fairly early, 1920s/30s maybe. This would be before people were playing the modern larger style of mandolin most common later on in choro music. This looks more like a copy of some aspects of Embergher or German instruments esp with the radiused fretboard.

What is very interesting is that it says bandola on the label. That would make it a mandola but it doesn't look like that from the photos.

There is a little bit of info on the Giannini site: history section (http://www.giannini.com.br/novo_eng/institucional.asp) -- that Tranquillo came over from Italy around 1900.

I can't figure out this page (http://www.giannini.com.br/novo_eng/catalogos-antigos.asp) but they say they have catalogs from 1954. I don't see how to look at any of them but there is a long list.