Early Italian (?) Flatback

[Jim Garber]

Ok, folks... thru my usual haphazard detective work, which usually consists of looking for something else, I have uncovered the maker and the country of origin. I guess we just couldn't really read the brand inside. I think Plamen guessed right. It was made in Germany by the Cid company of Markneukirchen.

Take a look at these links. The seller has no info other than these are made in Germany. He does picture a copy of a catalog page but it is too small to read.

Cid Tenor Banjo#1

Cid Tenor Banjo #2

Cid Tenor Guitar #1

Cid Tenor Guitar #2

I just did some more searching and found this quote on the Banjo Hangout Forum from an email from the owner of the above site mentioning yet another Cid banjo:

-The Cid banjo’s were build in Marktneukirchen. Their were distributed by “Firma Gebrüder Schuster”. Most of them were made for export. A great number of them went to Scandinavia.
Since Adolf didn’t liked Jazzmusic, he also hated banjo’s. Most of Germans banjo manufacturers stopped building banjo’s and almost everything related to the building and history of the banjo is lost in the mist of history.-

Frank Nordberg of Musica Viva has an image from a catalog page (possibly the same one that the banjo world pictures) and he says you can buy a CD of the catalog that it appears in from him on eBay.

Frank also has a listing with a catalog cut of a mandolin from the same company. He says this is a house brand from Gebrüder Schuster, so it is likely that these were built by various sources in Markneukirchen which like Mirecourt in France and Chicago in the US, big centers of musical instrument manufacturing.

[vic-victor]

Wow - very impressive. Thanks Jim, Plamen and everyone else. Mystery revealed.

[Jim Garber]

Here is a page from the Gebrüder Schuster catalog showing Cid bowlbacks. They were obviously copying the Italian makers including de Meglio, Vinaccia and (on other pages) Embergher. These were from a CD of German instrument catalogs I got from Christian Steinbrecher. The other page shows accessories including the ornate tailpiece that is on the mandolin in the first posting.

There are two Schuster catalogs but this is the only one that mentions Cid as a brand. I imagine that that flattop comes from a later catalog tho there are some flattops which are termed Portuguese in this catalog.

[Plamen Ivanov]

Great job, Jim! Thanks! Very interesting. Here some more information about CiD and other marks used by Gebrüder Schuster like Waco, Tartini, Spannfix, Motorboot, Stier, Martinelli, a.o.

[vic-victor]

Plamen, this is probably where your Puglisi tailpiece came from. Interesting, I wondered why some of the same models bowlbacks ofthen had different tailpieces. Apart from the later modifications the original owners also had an option for an upgrade. I've heard the service in the good old days was a lot better

[Plamen Ivanov]

Hi Vic,

No, the tailpiece on my Puglisi is branded with the mark Marcelli plus the design is different from those listed in the CiD catalogue. But it sure comes from Germany as well.

Thanks for the quest! :-) It was fun!

[Jim Garber]

Great site, Plamen!! Another mystery solved by the Mandolin Detectives!!

Thanks for the link. I really should learn to speak and understand German (and Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Bulgarian, etc.)