Old Mandolin Identification Help

[Goodin]

A friend of mine has a mandolin that has been passed down through the family. It was his wife's grandfathers. There are no markings on it anywhere that he could find so I am wondering if anyone can help me identify the maker, estimated year it was made, approximate value. See pics. Thanks!

102146102147102148102149

[billhay4]

Looks like a Kay, or derivative thereof, to me. Value is not great, but it will be hard to give you more than that without knowing if the instrument has any issues (cracks, bowed neck, collapsing top, etc.).
Bill

[Jim Garber]

Bill nailed it... Kay or KayKraft.

[mrmando]

We have some true Kay experts in the house, but I'm not one of them. Am I correct in thinking that one sees that particular headstock more often on prewar instruments?

[Jim Garber]

I call it the KayKraft footstock :)

[MikeEdgerton]

They used that headstock after the war as well as far as I know. It's tough as there is no date code inside and you pretty well have to rely on catalog pages for exact dating no matter what on Kay products. Keep in mind they built a lot of instruments during the folk music scare of the 60's. By that time they weren't using this headstock.

As far as the date goes I'd say early to mid 30's. Might be a little earlier.

[mrmando]

That would be my (non-expert) opinion of the date as well, even if I can't articulate why.

[Goodin]

Thanks for your input fellas.