No name factory mandolin

[fits]

OP:

Show us the whole mandolin.
Aside from the finish on the peghead, how does it sound?

This is how I got it, with the inlay sticker up high on the peg head.

[Ivan Kelsall]

That is a beautiful looking mandolin !. Looking at the tuners,did Kentucky mandolins come with Black buttons at any period ? - i haven't seen one with them before. I'm begining to wonder if this isn't just somebody's idea of esthetics ie. just the Logo decal & the Black buttons ??. And just how does it sound ??. That's really the main point. It's a shame that somebody saw fit to mess around with it,& if it is a good sounding mandolin,i'd still look for either a Kentucky headstock decal,or have the name inlaid by a good luthier,to put it back 'as it was' - if it IS that important,
Ivan

[almeriastrings]

Looking at the tuners,did Kentucky mandolins come with Black buttons at any period ? - i haven't seen one with them before.

Not to my knowledge.... this really looks like someone did their own 'hot-rod' job on it....

The tailpiece would also say 'The Kentucky' on an original. They would normally be nickel plated too... that ones looks rather like a brighter chrome. Can't tell for sure from the photo.

[MikeEdgerton]

I have those same tuners on a no name Korean built mandola I bought a few years ago. Mine has the same black buttons. They look kind of like Schaller's with removable buttons. If you pull a button off there is a metal sleeve behind it to make the shaft look fatter. They look pretty good actually. AllParts sells them with white buttons as a no name product. Bernie Daniels bought a mandola from the same seller. Where ever he was buying this stuff it was well built. Really decent stuff. I suspect that's what this is. The bigger question to me now is the Kentucky part. I always wondered if the mandolas were some sort of prototype from a factory in Korea. The guy was also selling mandolins like this one but I didn't need one. Now they are gone.

[Folkmusician.com]

Note how wide the string spacing is on this as well. At both the nut and bridge. So now we have tuners (or at least buttons), tailpiece (or cover), new nut, new bridge.... Someone changed pretty much everything they could, so not too much of a stretch to think they did the headstock as well.


At the time, the KM-500/550 and KM-600/650 were made at a different location. It didn't work out, and they stopped contracting at that factory. Some of you may recall a high percentage of neck bow issues on these. I had to return some. It was terrible, like 50% (the other 50% were nice). I have no idea how many must have been rejected or possibly returned to the factory (although that is not common). It is quite possible that orders were cancelled mid production. Somewhere out there, were hundreds of these with back-bowed necks. I recall the final sell off by Saga.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to think that somewhere along the way, necks were leveled and re-fretted, and at the same time The Kentucky Logo was dealt with. The one reason I would think otherwise on this particular one is that too much other work was done.

The whole import instrument business is still a bit Wild-West.... There are some crazy stories.

[multidon]

I think what you have there is a Chinese made Kentucky KM-600. If you think you can see the triangle shaped “Art Deco inlay” on the peghead that’s the givaway. The 650 was the same mandolin but with a scroll “inlay”. There was an obvious attempt to obscure what it actually is. I had one of the 600 “Art Deco” models. I bought it used from The Mandolin Store and Dennis personally guaranteed that this was one of the “nice” ones without the neck problem. It was a really nice instrument for the dollars spent, but I eventually moved it on. It was nice enough for me to regret selling it, but it kind of bothered me that it had the stigma of the model’s bad reputation, even though mine did not have the problem. Heck, that pattern of flame on the back looks so much like the one I used to have, it makes me wonder if maybe it’s the very one I had. I sold it factory stock though.

[Ivan Kelsall]

From Robert Fear - ".....Someone changed pretty much everything ...". I agree Robert. A ''self-customisation'' job alright,but it looks nice. I just wish that they'd left the original name showing,that's something that i find 'odd' !,
Ivan