oddball (pseudo?-) resonator w. amusing "professional" setup

[Dan Gellert]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1920s-Mando...wAAOSwOZNc0I2y

[Denny Gies]

Someone didn't take their medication when this was made.

[Ray(T)]

..... and exactly what “profession” was that person qualified in? Certainly not lutherie - it’s eight strings are equally spaced across the fingerboard to produce what looks like an eight string guitar.

[MikeEdgerton]

We've already seen this or one set up the same way. The only thing I could think of was that maybe they played it with a slide. It makes no sense.

[MikeEdgerton]

Yup, here it is. That one is hard to forget.

[EdHanrahan]

Someone didn't take their medication ...

... which must have been "Cathedranol". What a cringe-worthy name; makes me think catheter, ethanol, and Drain-o, all at once!

[John Rosett]

A "faux-bro"!

[Davey]

Cathedranola was a Slingerland name, here's the matching Guitar. Slingerland made high quality drums out of a factory in Chicago & went into Banjos & resonator instruments. Gibson own the name now. If you look up Slingerland drum history you'll see that same wiggly engraving on their drums.

It's supposedly got a resonating spruce disc under the cover. The coverplate is nicely shaped to give you some room to pick, unlike Dobro Mandolins.

https://youtu.be/8JW9sDEXaYQ

[nmiller]

Slingerland did not build resonator instruments, nor did they build any guitars or mandolins. Their standard guitar and mandolin models all came from Regal except possibly some of the earliest guitars, which may have come from Stromberg-Voisinet. This mandolin, curiously enough, does not resemble their Regal-built instruments. It almost certainly came out of one of the Chicago-area factories, but there is no smoking-gun trait to definitively say which.

[Davey]

I take your point, but you could also say that Dobro also didn't build Dobros, Regal did that too at least for some of the time. I imagine Slingerland made the metal parts, they certainly sold lots of Banjos too.

The general flavour of the thread is that this Mandolin is not a good Instrument but I disagree. It's a quirky and interesting object and looks pretty well made to me, I'd love to have it. The string spacing is weird but you could sort that out in an hour.

[nmiller]

Dobro did build a large proportion of their instruments; when it came to mandolins and guitars, Slingerland built none (excepting banjo-mandolins and guitar-mandolins). I don't know for certain who built the metal cover plate, but given the resemblance to the punched-hole design used on Regal's resonators at the time, I'd say it was probably them and not Slingerland.

[BradKlein]

It's an historically intersting instrument - but 'professionally re-conditioned' it is NOT. The problem is not in the nut or the bridge but the sloppy coat of who-knows-what covering the wood parts. It would easily be worth the asking price if it had not been 'reconditioned' to this sorry state.

[allenhopkins]

At one point, National Dobro, the merged company of the late 1930's and subsequent, had Regal and Kay building their wooden instrument bodies, while they made the resonators. The metal-bodied instruments were still made by National Dobro, I believe.

I have a Dobro mandolin with a body identical to the Regal-labeled resonator mandolins, and a National Havana wood-bodied guitar, whose body was supposedly made by Kay (per Brozman's book).

As to this mandolin, it just shows the influence of National instruments, that some company would design a mandolin with a metal covering, while the sound was made by its wooden top. I'm interested in the "resonating spruce disc" theory, and wonder if the bridge isn't just resting on a standard mandolin top. Does it have a sound-well similar to a Dobro? I'd be a bit surprised. If I owned the mandolin, I'd want to do a bit of structural sleuthing.

[Davey]

Have a look here: http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Muse...hedranola.html

According to Mark Makin's new giant book on National/ Dobro, the Dobro patent was issued in January of 1930. Manufacturing was started in a metalwork shop who had done the plating for National (Russel Plating Ltd). Dobros were made in California until 1932, and then Regal was licensed to make them. Dobro moved to Chicago in 1936 and after that only Regal made Dobros, as the re-combined National-Dobro were concentrating on metal bodies and electrics.

Mark's book is called "Palmtrees, Senoritas and Rocket ships". http://www.markmakin.co.uk

[MikeEdgerton]

For posterity:

[cjtcsfam]

For posterity:

Hi Mike,
I saw your picture of this mandolin and I think I actually purchased this yesterday at a guitar show. The scratches on the back are identical and I was wondering if you if there was a story behind this particular mandolin? Any info would be helpful.

[MikeEdgerton]

It's a Slingerland Cathedranola mandolin. Dave Kolars is the owner of the www.slingerlandguitar.com site probably knows more about these than anyone else. You can contact him via his website or here on the cafe as dkolars. They were part of a line of instruments made by Slingerland. Dave identifies one in this thread. As far as your particular instrument goes, I haven't a clue but if it was on eBay and you can ID the seller at the time they might be able to give you part of the puzzle.