Re: Inherited Prestige 8 string - year made?
Those pictures give some interesting clues. 1. Those probably aren’t the original tuners, since they are not fitted evenly with the backing plates lining up, and the corner of one is off the peghead edge. Presumably they were put on for functional reasons; the cheap tuners that came with these instruments usually had plastic buttons which would easily break or come loose if the instrument was played much. 2. There is enough fret wear to suggest that someone played it a fair amount. 3. It has a “zero fret”, the one about 1/8” below the nut; this optional feature might suggest to some knowledgable folks here the instrument’s origin. 4. You can see (by the outline on the finish) that the bridge was set at a kind of an insane angle for a long time (it should have been almost perpendicular to the strings); not while it was being played a lot. Mandolin bridges are generally not attached to the top, so it came off when the strings were removed. If you don’t have the bridge, you can buy a stock bridge with adjustable height (which I would recommend) for maybe 20 bucks or less, that and a set of new strings are probably all it needs to be playable. Get light gauge strings. There is almost certainly no truss rod to strengthen the neck. 5. I have a feeling that is a plywood top, but I could be wrong; a solid wood top would be better, but it is what it is, and if you spend a few bucks to make it playable you may well have an instrument that someone can enjoy playing.
2009 Eastman 505
2011 Collings MTO GT
2008 Toyota Sienna
2018 Sawchyn mandola
Mandoline or Mandolin: Similar to the lute, but much less artistically valuable....for people who wish to play simple music without much trouble —The Oxford Companion to Music
Bookmarks