Shutt "Playtime" mandolin on Ebay

[jim simpson]

Here's an Ebay listing for a favorite shape of mine. Looks like this one needs a lot of love and not at that price.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/50s-or-60s-P....c100033.m2042

[Jeff Mando]

His other listings also show a Stella mandolin for $1000......................NFI

[MikeEdgerton]

I'm pretty sure it was built by Harmony and it's older than he thinks it is and at that price it will be with him for a while.

[BradKlein]

Sears catalogue 1941-2. I think the one on eBay could be 40's through 60's.

I think these instruments are comparable to Stradolins. Solid pressed top, but a different tone than Strads which have a large transverse brace.

[sumibuilt]

Sears catalogue 1941-2. I think the one on eBay could be 40's through 60's.

I think these instruments are comparable to Stradolins. Solid pressed top, but a different tone than Strads which have a large transverse brace.

Shutts are different than Strads or Harmonys that are similarly shaped. Shutts are handmade solid wood mandolins and have a long scale length that actually pre dates Loars designs, having been built in the late teens early 20's. I've owned a few. Pretty good mando's actually. Sound is a hybrid of F hole and oval

[Graham McDonald]

That shape was a Albert Shutt design for Harmony in 1914, made by Harmony and sold by Sears Roebuck as a Mando-Violino.They were a mid-rangemodel mandolin for many years and persisted in the Sears range until 1941-42 by which time they were sold as the Playtime and very much an economy model. That catalogue page was close to, if not the last listing of that design in the Sears catalog. It is worth noting that the Mando-Violino was the first (or second if you count the bowlback Waldos of the 1890s) production mandolin with f-holes. Eight years before the Gibson F-5.

[MikeEdgerton]

These were built by Harmony not by Shutt. We've got dozens of threads about them. I agree with Graham, this was a late model. The neck on this one looks like the later Harmony products.