Shutt mandolins

**NickR** · Aug-11-2018, 1:26pm

At the time Harmony made this Viol- the most expensive Supertone mandolin from Sears,Roebuck, they also made a really nice rosewood mandolin- the next most expensive mandolin in the range- there is a Supertone advertisement you can find that shows all the mandolins. This mandolin was almost an exact copy of a Larson mandolin. Now, that Larson mandolin may have been sold by Supertone in the past. In 1916 or 1917, Sears, Roebuck bought Harmony, so Harmony made the bulk if not all of their guitars for over two decades. You can see top-of-the-range Supertone guitars from the late 20s being sold as "made by Oscar Schmidt- not Harmony". The problem with this naive deception, is that the guitars have the Harmony patented "aero" bridge so they had to be Harmony made! Not all Harmony made instruments were cheap junk by any standard but as guitars were made to a price, many were a little basic to say the least- but not all.

**MikeEdgerton** · Aug-11-2018, 3:14pm

Originally Posted by slimt

it amazes me how many different Companies can take other builders made instruments and turn those into there own styles and names.. So I guess what I have bought is a Harmony .. have to admit.. I didnt think Harmony instruments were well built.. I think they did well on this one..

Thanks for all the input.

Almost everybody built instruments for the trade, that is to be sold with another firm's label on them or no labels at all. The Chicago builders were very intermixed as we've see obvious Kay built instruments with other Chicago builder's labels on them. They all bought from the same jobbers and I'm assuming the employees moved between the companies as well as these were factory built instruments. Some can be quite nice. Some are not so nice. In the later years Harmony appeared to be looking for quantity with little regard to quality. Kay had some huge missteps and Regal seems to have built anything anyone wanted no matter how silly they appeared to be.

Keep in mind that when Harmony started building they still had crafts people doing the job. Corner cutting didn't enter the picture until a little later.

**mrmando** · Aug-14-2018, 11:07pm

Well, I guess slimt decided to part with this; it's on eBay now.

**slimt** · Aug-14-2018, 11:31pm

Originally Posted by mrmando

Well, I guess slimt decided to part with this; it's on eBay now.

Ya.. this ones going .. I found something else.. see how it goes ..

**BradKlein** · Aug-15-2018, 10:32am

It seems like a shame to sell it without checking to see if the pickup works or not. If it does not I would think that the buyer would have a very strong case for a return, unless you change the description to say explicitly that the pick up does NOT work. There is a big difference between that and saying ‘unknown.’ And for another thing, half the value of this instrument is in the pickup or maybe more, so for your own advantage as a seller it’s worth a couple minutes to find out whether it works or not.

As a purely acoustic instrument, re-finished and having a large rectangular hole cut in the top is bound to bring the value down about as far as it can go. Since this is a commercial transaction that may involve patrons at the Mandolin Cafe, I am feeling free to speak frankly.

**slimt** · Aug-15-2018, 11:08am

Originally Posted by BradKlein

It seems like a shame to sell it without checking to see if the pickup works or not. If it does not I would think that the buyer would have a very strong case for a return, unless you change the description to say explicitly that the pick up does NOT work. There is a big difference between that and saying ‘unknown.’ And for another thing, half the value of this instrument is in the pickup or maybe more, so for your own advantage as a seller it’s worth a couple minutes to find out whether it works or not.

As a purely acoustic instrument, re-finished and having a large rectangular hole cut in the top is bound to bring the value down about as far as it can go. Since this is a commercial transaction that may involve patrons at the Mandolin Cafe, I am feeling free to speak frankly.

Your right. I will check this evening. Im giving worse case info so no one expects a gem .
Thank you. If it does not sell i have no problem in keeping it. I found a 1907 A3 . I should have that in hand in a couple weeks.