Speranski Australia Kay custom mandolin.

[vic-victor]

I thought I'd reflect on this, one of a kind mandolin that I have, for posterity, so to say. In early 2000 I was importing small quantities of mandolins from China under my own brand Speranski Australia. It wasn't easy finding a good factory there. But after a process of trial and error I set my eyes on one from a small town near Shanghai. Their quality was pretty good. I was negotiating the details when I saw an old neckless mandolin body that looked like an old Kay for sale on ebay. The body was complete in the white, but never had a neck attached to it. The seller from Chicago explained in his listing that his granfather used to work at a mandolin factory and that the mandolin body was found in his home. I had a crazy idea of having this body shipped to my prospetive partners in China to see what they can do with it and to test their skills in the first place. Asked them if they were willing to and to my surprise they agreed. I got the thing and had it shipped straight from the US to China. In approx. 4 weeks time I got the completed mandolin sent to me from China. They were certainly creative in trying to put a standard F5 neck they had in stock to it (to do so they had to carve another top), but the way they did the job, the finish and attention to detail was superb. They clearly tried to impress me and they succeeded. I ordered several small batches of F5 mandolins from them. They were pretty good instruments, but after a year or so the business slowed down, so my import operations stopped.

But I still have and cherish this funny old/new hybrid instrument, which has a pleasant mellow tone and brings up all those memories.