Nice bowlback mandolin

[Mement0o]

Hi!

I've just stumbled across this bowlback mandolin on ebay france (Im french!) and I wondered if someone may recognize anything that would identify its origin.

What intrigued me is the form of the headstock and the white biding. Never saw that on old european bowlback mandolin.

For 80 euros I may just buy it cause I love the look of it but if you have any idea where it might come from I am interested to hear about it.

I'll review it here if I buy it!

https://www.ebay.fr/itm/Tres-jolie-m...e/303272607167

[brunello97]

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

[Mement0o]

Thank you very much for your generous answer! I bought it

I like that an instrument has traveled sor far and yet I'll never know exactly what happened in its life... it can sing but it can't talk !

Looking at Oscar Schmidt bowlback mandos to see if I could identify mine I found something interested:

https://www.aarbids.com/servlet/Sear...3&itemId=41537



Same biding, same pickguard, maybe it's a R.S. Williams and Sons mandolin!

[Mement0o]

Oh I just stambled across near the same mandolin as mine!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-bow...n/283406277511

No info on it though.