L. Ricca Bowlback

[Jim Garber]

It could have been made before of after my catalog. OTOH it is also possible that someone replaced the fretboard. Ricca became a big company later on with over 200 employees but that is when they switched over to piano making. I don't know if they even made mandolins at that point.

[Farace]

I found these while doing a Google search. I hope they're of interest.

From the January 1895 World Almanac & Encyclopedia:


See center advertisement from the August 1896 Loomis' Musical & Masonic Journal (New Haven, Connecticut):

[allenhopkins]

LOVE it: ads for disinfectant, cemetery lots, toilet paper, and mandolins all in a row. Sorta the opposite of "targeted marketing."

[brunello97]

LOVE it: ads for disinfectant, cemetery lots, toilet paper, and mandolins all in a row. Sorta the opposite of "targeted marketing."

Allen, I found the "Do you use toilet paper?" ad to be a bit of a shock. I guess they were "targeting" folks who weren't using toilet paper. And played the mandolin.

Yuck.

Mick

[CarlM]

Allen, I found the "Do you use toilet paper?" ad to be a bit of a shock. I guess they were "targeting" folks who weren't using toilet paper. And played the mandolin.

It is fascinating to me how far we are removed from just a generation or two ago. My parents grew up with coal heat, my wife's parents without indoor plumbing even in a medium sized city. Horses were still pretty common in town in my parents generation. The last city owned hitching posts were taken out in the 1960s. So were the last few outhouses in town. I recall one or two in town outhouses into the 1970s. The first house that I remember living in with my parents had the toilet and bath in the cellar and could only be gotten to by going outdoors and down through the cellar type doors. That house still exists though I expect it has been modernized. It would be in style now with the tiny house trend being under 500 square feet. My wife's father grew up in an under 500 square foot house with two sisters. The iceman was still coming around for my parents and the milkman when I was young. My grandparents still had and used their wind up Victrola when I was young. My mother still used a wringer washer into the 1960s and grew up with non electric irons and crank telephones.

The whole toilet paper thing had a lot to do with why the Sears and Roebuck catalog was so popular with their generation though a lot of the rural people used corn cobs.

[brunello97]

No nostalgia for moss or corncobs here.

Mick

[allenhopkins]

1. I grew up with a party-line crank telephone; our ring was two long and four short. When my parents bought the house, indoor plumbing had just been installed, so we ceremonially burned down the old outhouse. Our little Methodist church had an outhouse into the 1970's.

2. Think the "Do You Use Toilet Paper?" ad was selling some sort of institutional TP system to "Hotels, Steamboats, and Public Buildings." Residential consumers were on their own, I guess.

3. A nice solid hijack -- from mandolin ID, to outhouses and toilet paper vs. the Sears, Roebuck catalog. The TP was softer, but the catalog had more intellectual content.

[Troy Fisher]

I believe I have aquirred an Luigi Ricca anyone can help me with information and value I would appreciate it.

[Jim Garber]

I believe I have aquirred an Luigi Ricca anyone can help me with information and value I would appreciate it.

We believe that you have acquired a Ricca mandolin. Post some good clear decent-sized photos, front and some with details. Most Ricca mandolins were made around the turn of the last century. Unless it is particularly ornate one in pristine condition, it will not be especially valuable. If it playable, I would just put some decent strings on it and play it.

[Ray(T)]

There are photos with the other post you replied to Jim. What I’m not sure about is whether Troy is trying to sell one or has just bought one but there are three hours between the two!

[Jim Garber]

He has one and someone wants to buy it.

[Ray(T)]

3 hours earlier, he “believed” he’d bought it !!??!!

[Jim Garber]

And I believed him. Then again, I trust many people. Maybe he thought he found a real treasure. His looked OK but the bridge was positioned below the cant so probably someone tried to lower the action that way.