View Full Version : Help identifying Mandocello
Jcote
Feb-03-2013, 11:27am
97897[ATTACH=CONFIG]9789897899
I need help identifying this old Gibson mandocello that I have. It has no label inside. I think it is a K2 but would like comments from others.
97897[ATTACH=CONFIG]9789897899
I need help identifying this old Gibson mandocello that I have. It has no label inside. I think it is a K2 but would like comments from others.
fleur de lis on headstock = K2. Tuners and tailpiece cover look like latter day replsacements. Hard to guess exact age without seeing the originals.
Jcote
Feb-03-2013, 12:31pm
I also notice somebody has stamped in the numbers 7214 on the back of the headstock.
If that's the serial number it would date to around 1907 0r 8. That would be consistant with the black top.
Bernie Daniel
Feb-04-2013, 3:03pm
If that's the serial number it would date to around 1907 0r 8. That would be consistant with the black top.
How deep is the body? Those first manodocellos back in the pre-1910 days had a shallower body than the ones the followed later.
I used to own a K-1 #8220 with an Orville through the harp label. Sold it 9 years ago but I think I had always considered it to be a 1906/07 model.
But looks like maybe it was later if Miko's numbers are right. Here is a pic. The headstock had a different shape.
Eddie Sheehy
Feb-04-2013, 3:25pm
Fleur-de-lis and back binding is the main difference between a K2 and a K1.
mrmando
Feb-04-2013, 3:52pm
Yes, that's a K2 made around 1908, late enough to have a floating pickguard but early enough to have an Orville label and the more rounded headstock end. It's similar to this one (http://www.mandolinarchive.com/gibson/serial/7287) from the Archive. The tailpiece cover is post-1948 and the tuners are probably even newer than that. The fretboard has a 3rd-fret marker, so it's post-1929. This instrument originally did not have a truss rod, and the truss rod cover that has been installed is not a Gibson truss rod cover unless I'm mistaken. On the other hand, stamping the serial number in the headstock is something the fine folks at the Gibson repair shop would do in the 1960s if they were working on an old instrument. So everything but the tuners and truss rod cover points to a Gibson shop repair in the '60s (install truss rod, replace fretboard and tailpiece cover). Maybe the tuners and TRC were replaced later by someone else.
So, to satisfy some curiosities:
1. Can you remove the truss rod cover and take a photo of what's underneath?
2. Can you take a photo of the pickguard clamp?
3. Can you take photos of the back of the body and the back of the headstock?
4. Can you look inside at the neck block with a flashlight and see if you can find the factory order number?
Bernie Daniel
Feb-05-2013, 9:14am
I also notice somebody has stamped in the numbers 7214 on the back of the headstock.
It was noted that the Gibson repair shop might have stamped the serial number on the headstock. I have heard of this happening at least twice in the past. And I have one first hand account of that also. A person I knew shipped a teens A-4 back to Kalamazoo (probably in about 1973 or '74) to have the back re-glued to the rim and it came back with the serial number pressed into the back of the headstock. This had not been requested and the owner was not too pleased about it. (However he did not get out his pen knife and gouge the "The Gibson" out of the headstock!)
However, if there was no label in that mandocello it would have been "hard", even for Gibson, to press in the serial. So the label must have been there when it was repaired. The serial number was often penciled under the label -- with a good light on it are there any signs of the old label or the number at all?
mrmando
Feb-05-2013, 11:43am
Well, I thought I could make out an Orville label in the photos that have already been posted, but maybe I was kidding myself.