I am the proud owner of an interesting and great sounding mandola, which you can see here. Thanks to cafe member and mandolin instructor Adam Tanner for finding this instrument, and arranging for a video of same which lead to the purchase. You can see this mandola here:
https://shop.gryphonstrings.com/prod...dola-h0-50763-
As you can see, it is an unusual critter--an A-5 style carved maple back mandola. its is in excellant condition, and appears hardly played. The neck is very comfortable, as it has a truss rod, and so is not overly beefy.
The mandola has been worked on by Lynn Dudenbostal, who replaced the uneven frets and doctored the bridge and pickguard and tuners. Lynn was impressed with the tone of this instrument. I would say this dola has a characteristically sweet mandola resonance, but with more 'bite' and less of the guitarlike overtones of my 20's Gibson oval dola. The intonation and fret lay out is excellent and it plays evenly and uniformly up the neck. I am interested to hear how it develops over time, as it appears to have been played little.
Lynn shared this with me from Joe Spann at Gruhn's:
Joe Spann says that instrument isn't in the Gibson shipping ledgers, so that would indicate it was picked up at the factory. The serial number sequence is consistent with a 1936 purchase date, but the 795 is a known 1933 batch of Kalamazoo KHG-11 guitars. Possible it was numbered with that batch. With the handwritten -2, he would guess there are at least two of these.
so, there may be another out there. If anyone has other information or thoughts, Id be interested to hear them. Thanks, JJ
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