Yep. The one. The Lloyd Loar failure. Not sure what he was thinking slapping a tenor banjo neck on what amounts to a mandola body. But he did, and despite the “master model” label on it, it doesn’t carry the same cache as the other -5 creations. There are no recorded instruments outside 1924.
They came in several variations — 4 string with a mandola style bridge, 4 string with a banjo bridge, and even 8 strings which essentially made those produced the only octave mandolins Gibson made apart from the two unicorns from the early aughts. Sadly, many of these have been converted into what amounts to Master Model a-style mandolas. There were two models, the TL which was typically blond stained and the red burst stained TL-4.
This one was originally the banjo bridge model which frankly sounded horrible, so I had a mandola/octave bridge made for it and that really brought out the sound. Plays nice and true up and down the neck.
Only issues with the TL are that one of the tuner pegs has been replaced and the pickguard mount disintegrated. I have the original pickguard and what is left of the mount as well as the original banjo bridge. Normal scuffing for a 100+ year old instrument.
Has a heavily worn, but intact, original case.
FON: 11190 A
SN: 77239
