Has anyone seen one of these?

[chefhunt]

price was 25.oo when made,
Mandolyn Guitar
american guitar co
Kansas City, mo
liverpool st
Baltimore Mass


Have looked everywhere for info can not find anything on specific model.

[MikeEdgerton]

Yes, they are all over eBay every week and in just about every flea market from coast to coast. It wasn't too hard to find things with a Google search. Here's some label information. They were made by the Oscar Schmidt Company of Jersey City and sold door to door under a dozen different names. Here is more information. Finally, it's a relative of the Ukelin. Here's the best Ukelin page on the web. They really aren't a treasure. There is a story that several years ago someone opened up an old warehouse in New Jersey that had been closed for years and they found an entire room filled with these new in the box. I don't know if that's true or not but it could be. $25.00 is a generous price to pay for one.

[chefhunt]

yeah, I found those pictures. not the same company label or year. 25.oo was the price tag inside the thing. I cant find any info on the paticular name, company, brand, model. Not saying that your not correct about history, but I was looking for specific info on this one.
thanks for your research though.

[MikeEdgerton]

The point is they were made and sold door to door. I'm sure that there were companies that copied Oscar Schmidt and there were companies that ordered them from Schmidt with their labels and styles. Schmidt like all the builders built for the trade. Slight differences in the style and labels would be normal. They sold them with the lessons and it was a pyramid thing, you could be become a teacher and you could sell them to your friends. I'm guessing they sold a lot of them, they are everywhere. They didn't catch on I guess, probably because they were a bear to tune.

[MikeEdgerton]

Here's information on the brand itself, very limited. It's a listing in Mugwumps Encyclopedia of stringed instrument makers. Two companies, similar names. One is the one that sold this one, I'm pretty sure. The problem is you don't know if they were a builder or a distributor from the listing. Some large brand name musical instruments weren't built by the company that had the name on the label. These companies generally acted as if they were the manufacturer though.

[MikeEdgerton]

You also might be better off contacting the folks at http://www.fretlesszithers.com as what you have really has nothing to do with the mandolin other than having the name thrown on there.