I have a mandolin I found in a junk shop with an unusual chip-carved headstock: the maker (Hensel?) carved his name and the model name in inset relief between the tuning pegs. The dealer/luthier who set it up for me indentified it as being the work of one Arthur Hensel, a luthier who made guitars and mandolins in Toronto in the forties. I have no idea how he knew this, but he did show me another, a guitar someone had brought in for a tune up.
I haven't been able to learn anything else about the maker. Does anyone know anything about him?
There's a Hensel guitar in this mammoth lot of miscellaneous instruments:
http://www.insightsconsulting.biz/In...s/musicoll.htm --number 161, if you scroll down (There's also an early Gibson mandola, if you're curious, and soem very old guitars), but no information, although the pic does show his signature technique.
My mandolin has "artist" across the top, and "Hensel" between the pegs, as well as a flower or rose in a losenge. My informant tells me that "artist" was the name of the model.
I'd be grateful for any more info.
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