Or perhaps more appropriately, a mandola in G, since it was made during the mandolin orchestra craze.
I was not planning to purchase this, but we’d certainly seen it before on the mandolin archive. But as I was negotiating the purchase of the L&H Mandola, it was mentioned that it might be available. Simply couldn’t pass it up. Beauties like this and the L&H bass give the Home its name.
The body appears to be that of a mandocello with custom octave length neck. It has a cedar top, birch back & sides. It has the original Orville Lyre label, Handel tuners, pineapple tailpiece and the celluloid pickguard was replaced at some point. It has three cleated top cracks. There is a strap hanging mechanism affixed to the back of the headstock.
Provenance
From the Mandolin Cafe:
“We found this wonderful instrument from a friend of mine in Michigan whose lady friend had it for many years. It was slightly cracked on the top near the tailpiece and was reconstructed by Elderly’s repair shop before we got it five years ago. The inlayed pickguard was replaced by the plain white one instead of being reconstructed.
In the early seventies George Gruhn and I discussed these octave versions after reading one of the early teen catalogs. It had a few sentences (in the long diatribe) explaining why Gibson experimented with building a few “Octave Mandolas” (as they called it) and subsequently didn’t put them into production. At that time they actually considered it a “b-st-rd instrument” because it trod upon the mandola and mandocello parts in their beloved mando orchestras of the day. Therefore it was left behind by the Gibson herd to float in obscurity. I called Lowell about it when it first arrived in California and he told me about the 3-pointer also pictured in this thread. They might have made more than these two but none others have surfaced thus far.”
2010 it was at Gryphon Stringed Instruments
2011 it was at Elderly Instruments (Purchased by Rob Haines of the Vintage Mandolin Quartet)
2023 it was at Carters Vintage Instruments
Measurements
14-1/4″ wide, 2-1/4″ deep
Overall length, 34″
21-1/4″ scale
sn: 3878
Images courtesy of Carters Vintage and the Mandolin Archive
Video from Rob Haines Youtube Channel