c.1920 Martin Style A Flatback Mando

[Jake Wildwood]

Here's a honey I'm totally wanting to buy from its customer-owner...!

More photos/etc. at the blog (click here).

[crazymandolinist]

That is stunning.

[Jake Wildwood]

Yeah, it's killer. I really, really want this mando. I haven't had such mando lust for a while, now, and it's happened in the space of a couple days -- on Friday I was playing with Rick Redington in town and got to have my hands on a number of Rigel instruments the whole gig. If only I had the cash laying around!!!

[MandoSquirrel]

It certainly is a lust provoker; ugly as sin.
(if sin were ugly, it wouldn't be tempting, would it?)

[Jake Wildwood]

Heh, read the serial wrong... it's a 1919 to be precise.

[Tavy]

Lovely instrument Jake, interesting how small those dot markers are - and the double dot on the 7th fret??

[MikeEdgerton]

If I recall Martin used clay to make those dots. It isn't pearl.

[Jake Wildwood]

Mike: Exactly right.

Tavy: A carry-over from their guitar line.

[brunello97]

If I recall Martin used clay to make those dots. It isn't pearl.

Hmmm, from MOP to MOTS by way of the actual TB itself.

1919. Any way of telling whether Martin was still using red spruce or had begun to bring in sitka for its mandolins by this time? (Not that I could visually tell the difference…..) Interesting conversation around the broader topic here:

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...-on-Snakeheads

Mick

[Jake Wildwood]

I'm pretty sure Martin used red pretty much all the way up to WWII, no?

[brunello97]

Jake, I have no way to know. (Though I did have an '00s bowl and a mid '20s B for awhile...) Someone in the conversation in the thread I linked above implied that around this time Martin was getting sitka spruce for guitars from post WWI surplus aircraft material. That sounded like an interesting story.. No reference to mandolin construction, however.

Mick

[JGWoods]

I love my '42 Martin bent top A. I got it from Charles Johnson and he said it was a Adirondack top. I take him at his word with no reason to doubt.
The old Martins are so wonderfully light and have a big enough body to make for a really fine player. I like the 13" scale as well. At this time I find myself playing the Martin rather than my 1917 Gibson A4 which is a fine mandolin too, but the Martin just does it for me now.
It baffles me why the Martins sell for such low prices when comparing to the old Gibson As. I guess folks have locked in on the longer Gibson scale and wider nut as requirements for their mandolin purchases. Oh well, bargains are to be had for the rest of us who have discovered the delights of the old bent tops.