Search:

My Vintage Cases website was hacked and is down temporarily. It's being rebuilt and should be back in the near future.
The Facebook Group on Vintage Cases is alive and well....

The case appears to be a UTILITY brand case by Geib & Schaefer. They appeared about 1926 and were the first side-opening "chipboard" cases. They were a nice quality case with genuine leather edging...

All the Gibson F-5 mandolins came in rectangular Geib & Schaefer cases. Gibson catalogs always showed Geib & Schaefer cases. What you have pictured is an M&W (Maulbetsch & Whittemore) case from the...

If you are going to use the old metal straps to build a new handle then the D-rings are only part of the issue. You will need to remove the rivets that attach the metal straps to the leather. They...

These handles on the Loar cases are leather with metal ends but without a metal reinforcing strip inside. When the leather ages these handles break. I think I've seen only one Loar case with the...

This 1923 Gibson ad says "A deposit of ten dollars must accompany any instrument sent to the factory for installation of the Virzi Tone Producer." So here is documentation that anyone could send in...

Regarding the question of "original cases": Did prewar instruments "come with" a case? Before the 70's or later instruments were nearly always priced separately from the case. That does not mean they...

Honestly Sue, you can't really "improve" a chipboard case into something worth while. If you spend ANY money on fabric, foam or adhesive, you would be much better off buying a cheap hard shell case....

I'll comment on the case. It seems that the mandolin is late 30's to maybe very early 40's. The case may not be original but is probably from around that era. Here's the mandolin case from the 1940...

Amazing case. Looks brand new. Nice crisp trademark stamp with G&S Co. The company name changed to Geib, Inc. in 1937, so this case is earlier. Fits a 1935 date perfectly. Geib was making colored...

There was a mention of the Virzi "pins" a little earlier. They were very tiny brads that were driven into each foot, then nipped off to leave maybe a sixteenth of an inch protruding. (Couldn't be...

As Will Smith said, that is an M&W rectangular case for an F-4, probably from the early teens. The raised shape on the compartment lid is a square, set at an angle. I believe this was one of their...

Regarding the case, yes it is the type of end-opening case that Gibson would have offered. This was the lowest priced option, called a "Canvas Case". By 1924 Gibson dropped this type of case and...

Sure looks like a Mark Leaf case to me.

Steve

Regarding the case; there is every reason to think it is original. It is not earlier than 1922, as those had a rivet in the middle of the diamond on the pocket lid. The handle has been replaced.
...

I certainly understand that some folks are not interested in Facebook. (I put very little personal information on Facebook.) I do have a website with a lot of information about the history of vintage...

Unclelee, Feel free to come on over to the Vintage Case Facebook Group. Mike has a link, above. Share some photos of your case and we can chat about it.

If you try to take an old worn case and...

Have you noticed that most restaurants no longer sing "Happy Birthday" to guests but instead have some silly made-up chant that goes "Happy, happy birthday, whoot, whoot, whoot!!!!". That's because...

Several points:

1.

Decades ago Bill Monroe and just about everyone in Country Music would record Public Domain songs/tunes and put their name as author. They weren't especially trying to be...

And it's an end-opening "canvas" banjo case.

Steve
164982

I'm going by memory, but Gibson had tried to buy the Epiphone bass product line earlier and was turned down. Perhaps that's when Gibson made their own plywood machines in 1945? Then later, Epiphone...

Hi Shepherd1,

Photos would help. I'm going to presume you mean the interior accessory compartment is missing the lid and side?

No one sells case parts such as this. But it wouldn't be very...

Beautiful mandolin and case. A while back we had a very involved discussion about the shaped F cases on the Facebook Vintage Case group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/vintagemusicalinstrumentcases/...

My 2 cents: I've used plenty of Fixative as an artist. As the link says, it's for pastels or charcoal, to keep the artwork from getting smeared. (Otherwise one wipe of a hand could destroy a charcoal...

I'm not certain what you mean by "leatherette". It could mean bonded leather, which is ground up leather fibers that have been reformed into a sheet. Or it could mean a paper-based product that has...