Antique Photo of a Mandolin of the Day

[Jim Garber]

This guy must be the concertmaster with his 20s F5 (possibly Loar?) I wonder if that is his significant other with that harp guitar.

[Jim Garber]

Here are a couple of Martin style 20s which would date this photo at earliest to 1929. The guy on the right looks especially happy... or catatonic.

[Jim Garber]

These two instruments flanking the guitar are very interesting. At first I thought the mandola on the right was a Portuguese guitarra but it looks like it only has 8 tuners. The style looks sort of familiar, I might guess someone like Gaetano Puntilillo (Majestic) or Michael Iucci. That is a pretty wild guess. The tenor guitar on the left might be by the same maker.

There are a few other instruments of note here: a Majestic and two Vega banjos; a Kay Kraft guitar, a Martin A mandolin, an engraved National tricone, a Lyon & Healy style B, etc.

[Jim Garber]

Lastly, there is this octave mandola with a pearl fretboard. Looks like it could be a Bohmann (from the stars on the peghead).... or not. I think the guy made his own tailpiece.

[Martin Jonas]

These two instruments flanking the guitar are very interesting. At first I thought the mandola on the right was a Portuguese guitarra but it looks like it only has 8 tuners. The style looks sort of familiar, I might guess someone like Gaetano Puntilillo (Majestic) or Michael Iucci. That is a pretty wild guess.

I have to say that this looks very very similar in scale length, shape, soundhole size/location and scratchplate design to the fancier models of Boehm waldzither, except that it has only eight tuners rather than nine. I know Boehm made mandolins (which they called "Waldoline") that were basically scaled-down waldzithers with eight strings. They may also have made them in mandola size.

Puntilillo is a possibility, too -- we know he had business links to the German musical instruments market, so he may well have picked up on waldzither designs.

Martin

[Martin Jonas]

Found this one on a German Ebay auction. A rather working-class-looking mandolin ensemble, or possibly family group. The mandolins all look massmarket German (one of them 12-string, I think). The boy (or small adult?) in the centre seems to play one of those six-string lute guitars that were popular in Germany. Strange to have a single violinist in there. The Ebay seller says it's from 1910, but I don't know whether there is anything on the back of the photo to support that date.

Martin

Edit: I now see that although the Ebay seller is in Germany, he states the postcard's origin as "Greece". I have to say that there is nothing in this picture that looks Greek to me, and a lot that looks German, but who knows?

[MML]

As always great pictures Jim. There sure are a wide variety
of instruments there.

[Jim Garber]

I have to say that this looks very very similar in scale length, shape, soundhole size/location and scratchplate design to the fancier models of Boehm waldzither, except that it has only eight tuners rather than nine. I know Boehm made mandolins (which they called "Waldoline") that were basically scaled-down waldzithers with eight strings. They may also have made them in mandola size.

You can see what Martin is talking about here

This one really does look like the one in the photo except for the tuners:

[Gutbucket]

Here are a couple of Martin style 20s which would date this photo at earliest to 1929. The guy on the right looks especially happy... or catatonic.

Looks like he sat on the other guy's metronome.

[Jim Garber]

Just in... a woman's mandolin group from the UK, tunr of the last century. For you bowlheads, most of those mandolins are most likely from the deMeglio shop or copies thereof. More details will follow.

[Jim Garber]

Here's one section closeup. Once again, those ribbons.

Man, I just realized I have to clean the glass on my scanner. There are red blotches.

[Jim Garber]

Here's the center section. Nice hairdos, as usual, esp that woman in the center.

[Jim Garber]

And the final right side.

[good_ol_al_61]

Shouldn't these be posted also under the "women with mandolins" thread?

I do believe that the lovely lady with the harp Guitar is staring at me!

[Lefty&French]

Another one from the Golden Age of Outrageous Moustaches.

I think this is European as the date says 21-9-1912. I am not sure what the guy's name is but it might be Lord St. Vincent or John St. Vincent.

Pont-St-Vincent, in Lorraine, France.

Hmmmmm... you may be correct. Perhaps the guy initialled the card in the lower right corner.

It's french (or speaking french) because it says :
Pont St Vincent
le 21-9-1912

[brunello97]

Nice picture, Jim, and great scanning. Interesting to see so many deMeglios in one group, like the Embergher tunas and the Gibson orchestras. Maybe we now have a clearer idea where some of the ebay deMeglios might have originally come from. The woman in the back to the right has an interesting mandolin, with the front mounted tuners.

Mick

[David Newton]

Send that photo to Nick Park, I see a "Wallace & Grommet" episode there.

[Martin Jonas]

Somehow none of my mandolin lessons were ever quite like that. The young lady in this vintage postcard from Ebay.de seems to be overcome by her passion for the mandolin to the point of losing her clothes and jumping the instructor.

Martin
Warning: some nudity, which is why I refrain from uploading the actual photo here.

[delsbrother]

OK, I wanna party with these guys!



But what kind of mando is that? Dig the funky soundhole.. ??

[JEStanek]

Didn't I see that photo on the back of the DVD box for Reefer Madness? The guy in the middle of the back row looks like Anakin Skywalker after he finished off a room full of unarmed bad guys!

Jamie

[Jim Garber]

Recent acquisition: Promo shot of the Andrini Brothers from San Francisco, 1945. Lawrence Andrini was the mandolinist -- actually the mandolirist -- in this photo. Nice D'Angelico guitar, too, played by his brother Frank!! On the back of the photo it says: "appearing on Bob Hope Show, Sun. Dec 16.

[Jim Garber]

Here is a close-up of Lawrence's mandolin.

[delsbrother]

Is that a shrunken head hanging from the D'Angelico?

[Bobbie Dier]

If you're not careful you could put you're eye out with that thing. It looks like his scroll came uncurled.

[Neil Gladd]

Recent acquisition: Promo shot of the Andrini Brothers from San Francisco, 1945. Lawrence Andrini was the mandolinist -- actually the mandolirist -- in this photo.

Lawrence Andrini was a student of Bernardo de Pace. When I met DePace's daughter, some 20 years ago, she had 2 LPs they had made and sent to him. I have never seen any other reference to those records, (until now). While in the middle of this posting, I Googled Andrini Brothers, found one of the LPs on eBay, and just bought it!