Worth 10 string "mandolette"?

[PaulD]

I popped into a local acoustic music store last weekend and they were fitting a bridge to what I think was called a "Mandolette." I wrote down what was on the label and searched when I got home but came up empty. I don't have the note here so I'm going by memory, which works less well every year!

At first glance I thought it was a largish Lyon & Healy... maybe a mandola. On the second glance I noticed that it had 10 tuners... 5 per side. The guys who were working on it hadn't noticed that fact, but they are banjo/guitar guys so any more than 6 tuners probably looks like a lot! The mando is in good shape with an intact label that reads something to the effect of "Worth Mandolette Company, Chicago, ILL." with #216 (I think) written on both the label and inside toward the tail block.

The tuners have black tuning buttons, the body is rosewood with maple or holly accents, and the pickguard looks pretty typical of a L&H/Washburn bowlback from the early 1900s. The tailpiece is missing most of its fingers so they were going to replace it, but the original only had fingers for 8 strings so it was not customized for the additional strings. It looked like a bone or ivory nut with slots filed for all 10 strings, but the treble-side pair almost look like they were filed wider than the others as if it had a bass pair above the E strings.

Has anybody heard of such a beast? If it was number 216 there must be a few others around but I'm not seeing Worth listed here or on Mugwumps. Maybe they started building with #200? I didn't measure the scale length... I wish I had, but are there any ideas how would this thing likely been strung and tuned?

I'll try to get back over to the store this evening and get some pics and measurements. I've got an hour to kill while my daughter is in dance class and it's only a few blocks from the store so I usually go tune and open up their instruments for them. If anybody has some information I could give them to pass along to the owner it would be great.

Paul

[Neil Gladd]

Possibly a mandolinetto? (Mandolin with guitar-shaped body, but still only 8 strings.)

[PaulD]

Nope... this has a traditional bowl-back shape, although I think it may have a larger body than most bowl backs. I'm not sure about that... the body looks large, the neck looks short, and the peghead is really long to accommodate the additional tuners. It may be that the proportions are just messing with my perception... I'll have to measure it and compare it to my L&H.

pd

[Dan Krhla]

was it something like a cuatro? There are a ton of pics on the web. here's one sample - http://www.music123.com/Oscar-Schmid...48251.Music123

[PaulD]

Nope again... it looked like a basic bowl back. Here's a picture of one similar to mine. The Worth looked similar in construction and had a similar pick gaurd only it doesn't have the decorative inlay (just the tortoise shell). On the Worth the head is taller to accommodate the extra tuners but it also tapers from bottom to top.

pd

[Martin Jonas]

Like this?



The top one is my 10-string Ceccherini. It was built for four courses, same as normal mandolins, but with triple stringing on the top two courses. I've left off the two extra strings; works just fine.

Martin

[PaulD]

Martin... those are very cool! A little more ornate than this thing I'm describing. My daughter was sick and didn't go to dance so I didn't get down to photograph it.

I don't know for sure whether it was built for 2 courses of 3 strings, but the nut is filed for 5 pairs. Obviously, though, the nut may have been replaced so that doesn't guarantee that it was designed for 5 pairs.

Paul

[Martin Jonas]

Hmmm. I don't think I've come across any 10-string bowlbacks with five courses. There are five course instruments around, but they are not bowlbacks. Vega built 10-string cylinderbacks in two sizes, both tuned the same ("mandola-mandolin" and "mandolin-mandola", one being mandola-sized with an additional thin-gauge E, the other mandolin-sized with an additional fat C). Then there are various citterns and cittern-derivatives with five courses, or four courses plus various low drones, such as these two of mine (with an Ajr for scale):



The 10-string on the left was originally a four-course-plus-two-different-bass-drones, which I've rejigged into a five-course. They are flatbacks, though.

It's possible that the one you saw was some variant on the same idea, a mandolin with additional open harmony drones.

Martin

[PaulD]

Okay, these pictures are not very good but I was able to bang a few out before my camera battery died. The scale length is 11", bowl measures 12-3/4" L x 7-15/16" W x 5-7/8" D.

[PaulD]

The end; the tailpiece has been removed and you can make out the shadow of the original tailpiece in the original photo. I don't know how well that detail will come across here.

[PaulD]

Tuners.

[PaulD]

Label. I was having a hard time getting enough light in the mando. These were outside and the sun was washing the picture out. We had just set up a small light in the mando when my battery died, but this is the bulk of the label. The whole thing reads:

The Original and Only
Mandolette
patent applied for
Made by Anton Diener
for the Worth Mandolette Co.
Chicago, ILL. USA
#216 <-(number written in pencil)

Paul

[brunello97]

Wow. This ought to get interesting in a hurry. And fresh on the heels of the Bandolin expose:

http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin....t=45385

Detectives to their mark.....

Mick

[Jim Garber]

The short scale indicates something. I would think that it might be similar to the Spanish bandurria in that it has that extra course to avoid playing higher up the neck. Might be tuned in 4ths.

I wonder if the patent was ever awarded because I could not find it listed in a number of searches for Diener or Worth etc.

[Bob A]

Weird scale. We ought to mate it with my 14" Monzino, see if we can get a normal mandolin out of the effort.

[Martin Jonas]

OK, I found another instrument called "mandolette" with ten strings and five courses here. As it's also called a "mandolette", and the neck looks very short suggesting a similar scale length to the one that Paul has found, this would appear to be related. However, amazingly, this one was made by Alvarez as late as the 1970s. Assuming (as the owner of that site clearly does) that this is the same Japanese "Alvarez" company that also made import mandolins and guitars, this would suggest there being some sort of established market for this instrument. As that market clearly wasn't in the US, or in Europe for that matter, I am inclined to consider this a variant of the various Latin American chordophones, which is in any case fairly strongly suggested by the body shape of the Alvarez thingy.



Martin

PS: A Google search also brings up a thing called the "piano mandolette", made by Stella, but that was an Autoharp-like beast.

[Jim Garber]

Martin:
I wonder if that is actually labelled mandolette or just termed that by the seller. It looks almost identical to the cuatro moderno of Puerto Rico. There might be some connection there tho since both may have derived from some variant of the bandurria.

[trebleclef528]

Martins photo is almost definately a cuatro, and i think Jim's right... that the seller has described it using the name of manolette.

PaulD's instrument is a bit of a mystery... it's generally accepted that a mandolinetto(also frquently called a mandolette) is, as Neil describes ... a mandolin with aguitar shaped body. The "mandolette" of PaulD looks by all accounts simply to be a 10 string bowlback mandolin (and i've seen a few)and the dimensions of the bowl similar to many a bowlback... but it's the very short scale length of 11 inches that i find interesting....

SO A FREE COPY OF THE LATEST BMG (

[trebleclef528]

Martins photo is almost definately a cuatro, and i think Jim's right... that the seller has described it using the name of manolette.

PaulD's instrument is a bit of a mystery... it's generally accepted that a mandolinetto(also frquently called a mandolette) is, as Neil describes ... a mandolin with a guitar shaped body. #The "mandolette" of PaulD looks by all accounts simply to be a 10 string bowlback mandolin (and i've seen a few)and the dimensions of the bowl similar to many a bowlback... but it's the very short scale length of 11 inches that i find interesting....

SO A FREE COPY OF THE LATEST BMG (British Banjo mandolin and Guitar Federation) and the Latest LGMA (Lanarkshire Guitar and Mandolin Association)Newsletters....... To the one who comes up with the best... not necessarily most sensible, explanation.......oooh this is fun!!!!
Ian

mandolinscotland.org
banjomandolinguitar.co.uk

[Neil Gladd]

This is totally unrelated, but I have a recording by a mandolin ensemble called "The Mandolettes." It's a 16" disc (That's 16 INCHES, not 16 minutes) from the late 1940s or early 1950s that was distributed only for radio broadcast. I know nothing about them, but they made 3 of these and the Library of Congress has another of them.

[PaulD]

I'm kinda liking Jim's theory that it's designed to be tuned in 4ths... that makes a lot of sense. I found out the woman who bought it really doesn't know mandolins; she doesn't play but she's having this music store set this instrument up so she can learn. I had suggested to the repair guy that he consider setting it up with 4 pairs but after this discussion it sounds like it may be a bad starter instrument even set up as a standard mando with that short scale*. Maybe I'll have to see if she'll sell it to me and I can try it tuned in 4ths... hmmmm...

*BTW: Reality check... I'm measuring the scale length correctly, am I not? 5.5" from the business side of the nut to the 12th fret, 11" from the nut to the shadow where the bridge used to be.

[motherplucker]

I was doing some research on my grandmas mandolin, and I came upon this and realized that my grandma owns the mandolin that you speak of, the ten string "mandolette" with the #216. I was excited when i found out that you showed intrest in this instrument, my grandma bought it off ebay, not knowing really anything about it. I found the information on this instrument very intresting.