It's a Howard mandolin, distributed by Wurlitzer. It was previously tentatively identified as a Lyon & Healy, but a few details such as the headstock shape & inlay, the heel design, the volute and the hardware lead me to think it was made by someone else. It's definitely not a Larson, and I'm confident that I can rule out Regal as well.
I'm leaning toward Harmony for a few reasons. First, whoever built it also built mandolins for Supertone; there are a bunch of Supertones which are less fancy but structurally identical to this mando. Second, although Harmony usually didn't have the back cover the heel, the rounded
shape of the heel looks like their work. Third, they loved that snowflake inlay. But, I am open to persuasion.
Regardless of the factory, it's a very nice instrument. Aside from a little warping of the top and some kickup at the end of the fretboard, it's quite playable. I've tuned it down to F and may keep it there, partly to relieve the stress on the instrument and partly because it has surprisingly nice bass in that tuning. The bridge has been shimmed, and I think the fret markers have been re-inked just because they're so clean, but otherwise it appears to be all original.
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