Re: Nice bowlback mandolin
It looks like an American made mandolin, my brother. Many small details suggest that to me. Tres interesting that it has found its way over to France....
Our default assumption with many unlabeled bowlback mandolins is that they might have come from Chicago, likely from Lyon + Healy who made many a mandolin to be sold by others. The headstock and dark tuner knobs weren't common with the Chicago folks though, so this could also have originated in the Oscar Schmidt / NJ / NY center of mandolin making. But my hunch would be Chicago.
What to expect? Like the American poet, Carl Sandburg wrote about Chicago "the City of Broad Shoulders" expect a more solidly built mandolin than its Italian or French cousins. Heavier material for the bowl and heftier neck. What you gain in stability you might lose in resonance.
But the builders took advantage of the furniture manufacture in Chicago and in Michigan so the rosewood and spruce woods tend to be exceptional.
Likely to be a very serviceable and pretty mandolin once cleaned up, with the bridge properly located and some amazing Calace Dolce strings....
80 e is a good price if the neck is in good shape....and it appears to be--or is at least close--hard for me to tell from the photos. But some fiddling with the bridge would likely make this playable.
Yes! Let us know if you do buy it. Rare to see Euro mandolins on the market here in the (other) E-U and equally so to see Chicago mandos over y'all's way.
Thanks for posting!
Mick
Ever tried, ever failed? No matter. Try again, fail again. Fail better.--Samuel Beckett
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