Need help to identify my mandolin

[MandoaMando]

Hi everyone.

Can anyone help me to identify the mandolin in the attached pictures?

It says made in GDR on the sticker, so it's made in East Germany, but that's all i know about it.
So any help with year, maker and maybe value if any at all would be appreciated.

[allenhopkins]

What sticker? Anything else on it but "G.D.R."?

Lacking that, lots of guesses and generalizations possible. It looks like many other dome-back German/European mandolins from just before WWII to nearly the present day. The German Democratic Republic had a finite lifespan; the fact that the initials are English, suggests the mandolin was made in East Germany for export. Markneukirchen in Saxony, formerly part of East Germany, has been a major instrument-manufacturing region for centuries, and it's plausible to attribute otherwise unidentified instruments to that area, but there's no visible definite info supporting that.

So we could guess 1950's through 1980's, which is no real help at all. The vinyl gig bag, if it's "original" to the instrument, might indicate the latter part of that range, I guess. The marquetry on the back, slotted headstock, and inlaid pickguard are all characteristic of 20th-century German instruments.

As to value, hard to say. German dome-back mandolins crop up regularly, and usually are advertised for a couple hundred dollars or so. They're probably underpriced for the quality of materials and work-person-ship, but there's not much market for them in the US.

[MandoaMando]

Thank you for the fast reply, lots of great info.

I accidentally cropped out the sticker, but uploaded new pictures now.
I found some extra strings(with a norwegian pricetag that says kr59($7,5), I'm from Norway) and a pick inside the cover i forgot about too.
That's all i got.

[MikeEdgerton]

They fail to sell on eBay almost weekly along with their West German counterparts. Play it. The value isn't great.

[MikeEdgerton]

After a quick scan through I find a few that didn't sell and this one that sold for $61.00 last week on eBay.

[MandoaMando]

Thanks for the help. I've put it up for sale over here, so we'll see how it goes.

[rcc56]

"East Germany," as we called them in the States, was not a society where the government encouraged the recognition of individuals, except perhaps for Olympic athletes. You might never be able to ascertain the name[s] of the people who built this mandolin.