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Thread: Help Identifying a bowlback

  1. #1

    Default Help Identifying a bowlback

    HI,
    I recently was given this bowl back and was wondering if anyone could share any info on this instrument. I was told it was 1900's possibly a bit older. The mother of pearl fret board is perfect, and the butterfly is also mother of pearl.
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  3. #2
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Help Identifying a bowlback

    Can you post a photo of the back of the headstock and the back of the top of the neck joint?
    Jim

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  4. #3

    Default Re: Help Identifying a bowlback

    I think it is probably one of the Oscar Schmidt pearl board mandolins. It has a waverly cloud tailpiece- the one below has the shell tailpiece.

    https://jakewildwood.blogspot.com/20...ade-pearl.html

  5. #4

    Default Re: Help Identifying a bowlback

    Quote Originally Posted by brettsalas View Post
    HI,
    I recently was given this bowl back and was wondering if anyone could share any info on this instrument. I was told it was 1900's possibly a bit older. The mother of pearl fret board is perfect, and the butterfly is also mother of pearl.
    The neck broke during the northridge earthquake, and was poorly repaired. I did drop it off to an incredible luthier that said he can repair. Fingers crossed.
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  6. #5

    Default Re: Help Identifying a bowlback

    Those look like brass plate Waverly tuners although it would be good to see them in their entirety.

  7. #6
    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Help Identifying a bowlback

    Unfortunately that neck damage isn't going to help the value of this mandolin. Although pretty the bowlback mandolins that have any real value are generally marked and from easily identified makers. Take a quick scan through these prices. Pay attention to the green sold numbers and if there's a slash through it that means it sold for less, in some cases much less. There's a Martin mandolin currently on this list that looks like it's sold twice for a lot of money. Yours isn't a Martin. If you are getting it repaired so you can enjoy it that is wonderful. If not don't get farther into it that you want to be.
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  8. #7
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Help Identifying a bowlback

    I was asking for the back of the neck photo because usually the Napoli made ones had that construction with a joint there. Aside from the actual neck damage that is evident it looks more Italian than American to me. That Diamond inset would have been a piece of MOP glued in there.

    Sometimes you can’t go by hardware to source the makers. This tailpiece could have been added later.
    Jim

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  9. #8

    Default Re: Help Identifying a bowlback

    Yes, it may not be a Waverly tailpiece as we cannot quite see it fully. I do think the tuners are from Waverly but they may well have been changed- which would probably be seen if they were removed when it is restrung.

  10. #9

    Default Re: Help Identifying a bowlback

    This is another Oscar Schmidt mandolin and the neck is significantly different-no joint as in the phot. Indeed, that jointed neck style is like on my Vinnacia mandolin.

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/33459238100...Bk9SR8Ke9cv-YA

  11. #10
    Full Grown and Cussin' brunello97's Avatar
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    Default Re: Help Identifying a bowlback

    Quote Originally Posted by NickR View Post
    This is another Oscar Schmidt mandolin and the neck is significantly different-no joint as in the phot. Indeed, that jointed neck style is like on my Vinnacia mandolin.

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/33459238100...Bk9SR8Ke9cv-YA

    That's about as much a smoking gun as we've been able to determine. I don't recall seeing that "Italian" neck joint on any production run US mandolins.

    And it's been rare for me to see an Italian one piece neck and headstock.

    Schmidt, though, is interesting because many, but not all, feature a shaping the end of the fretboard to follow the shape of the of the soundhole, what I see as a distinctly Italian practive.

    It was not widespread in the US. Luigi Ricci used it and we see it on a rash of Schmidts.

    We've discussed the working relationship here between Raphael Ciani and Schmidt has been discussed here on a few occasions without conclusive time frames or models, despite the label and anectdotal references.

    But we've heard reference of Ciani and "his Italians" working at Schmidt and on their own, which for me forms a link to this particularly fretboard detailing which, again, turned up on some but not all of Schmidt bowlbacks.

    I don't think it was a Gibson / GM / Ford etc. top down design decision, but one from the experience of the builders. Ciani's crew very likely had been building mandolins in Napoli before emigrating to the States.

    Here's hoping someone takes the deep dive into the Philadelphia-NJ-NY-Boston axis of mandolin making as has been done for some of the major Chicago makers.


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